A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916)
Not that I always struck the proper mean
Of what mankind must give for what they gain,
But, when I think of those whom dull routine
And the pursuit of cheerless toil enchain,
Who from their desk-chairs seeing a summer cloud
Race through blue heaven on its joyful course
Sigh sometimes for a life less cramped and bowed,
I think I might have done a great deal worse;
For I have ever gone untied and free,
The stars and my high thoughts for company;
Wet with the salt-spray and the mountain showers,
I have had the sense of space and amplitude,
And love in many places, silver-shoed,
Has come and scattered all my path with flowers.
A few random poems:
- Loot by Rudyard Kipling
- Ольга Берггольц – Я тайно и горько ревную
- Written In A Blank Leaf Of Macpherson’s Ossian by William Wordsworth
- An Apology for the Bottle Volcanic by Vachel Lindsay
- Mora Jobana (My Youth) poem – Amir Khusro poems | Poems and Poetry
- A World So Different by Mary Etta Metcalf
- Untitled XVIII by Yunus Emre
- The Snowy Spring Is Raging Mad poem – Aleksandr Blok poems | Poetry Monster
- Lucky by Tony Hoagland
- Ballade Made In The Hot Weather by William Ernest Henley
- Halls grew darker poem – Aleksandr Blok poems | Poetry Monster
- Алексей Николаевич Толстой – Москва
- Василий Курочкин – Дама приятная во всех отношениях
- Oh, Is It Love? poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- Li Po, the moon and me by Raj Arumugam
External links
Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry by Fledermaus
Talking Writing Monster’s Page –
Batty Writing – the bat’s idle chatter, thoughts, ideas and observations, all original, all fresh
Poems in English
- The Palace
- Storm
- Poor Fisherman
- Invitation
- A Banquet Song
- Written In A Volume Of The Comtesse De Noailles
- With A Copy Of Shakespeares Sonnets On Leaving College
- Vivien
- Virginibus Puerisque
- Translations Dante Inferno Canto Xxvi
- To England At The Outbreak Of The Balkan War
- Tithonus
- The Wanderer
- The Torture Of Cuauhtemoc
- The Sultans Palace
- The Rendezvous
- The Old Lowe House Staten Island
- The Nympholept
- The Need To Love
- The Hosts
More external links (open in a new tab):
Doska or the Board – write anything
Search engines:
Yandex – the best search engine for searches in Russian (and the best overall image search engine, in any language, anywhere)
Qwant – the best search engine for searches in French, German as well as Romance and Germanic languages.
Ecosia – a search engine that supposedly… plants trees
Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.
Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.
Parallel Translations of Poetry
The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works

Alan Seeger (1888-1916) was an American war poet who fought and died in World War I during the Battle of the Somme, serving in the French Foreign Legion. Seeger was the brother of Charles Seeger, a noted American pacifist and musicologist and the uncle of folk musician, Pete Seeger.