A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916)
I have sought Happiness, but it has been
A lovely rainbow, baffling all pursuit,
And tasted Pleasure, but it was a fruit
More fair of outward hue than sweet within.
Renouncing both, a flake in the ferment
Of battling hosts that conquer or recoil,
There only, chastened by fatigue and toil,
I knew what came the nearest to content.
For there at least my troubled flesh was free
From the gadfly Desire that plagued it so;
Discord and Strife were what I used to know,
Heartaches, deception, murderous jealousy;
By War transported far from all of these,
Amid the clash of arms I was at peace.
A few random poems:
- The Indian Upon God by William Butler Yeats
- Ольга Берггольц – Родине
- Николай Языков – Е. А. Тимашевой (Молодая ученица)
- Илья Эренбург – Легкий сон
- Jewels by Sara Teasdale
- Василий Тредиаковский – Невозможно быть довольным
- The Ploughman’s Life by Robert Burns
- Seasons by Tala Bar
- chaplin.html
- Владимир Набоков – Воскресение мёртвых
- A Question Answered poem – Alfred Austin
- Blind Man’s Buff by William Blake
- Lines on Fergusson, the Poet by Robert Burns
- Robert Burns: The Henpecked Husband:
- A Week Later by Sharon Olds
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
- Gravity Suspended
- From Death
- Forfeiture
- For My Mother
- Fly Fly Butterfly
- Even The Rain
- Destiny Far Away
- Conversation
- Calling All Angels
- At The Locks Of The Void
- Anthem
- All In A Word
- A Teenage Pregnancy
- A Painting Morning
- A Child Of War
- Your Dream
- Ars Poetica
- The Vision Of Cassandra
- The Sacrifice Of Iphigenia
- The Lament Of The Old Nurse
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.