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:
- Кондратий Рылеев – Не вчера ли в хороводе
- Зинаида Александрова – Шарик
- Robert Burns: Extempore Reply To An Invitation:
- Гавриил Державин – На умеренность
- From: The Home We Will Never Live In That Place by Nijole Miliauskaite
- Fox
- To The Honble Commodore Hood on His Pardoning a Deserter by Phillis Wheatley
- In Token Of The Love You Gave by Timothy Thomas Fortune
- Deeply Morbid by Stevie Smith
- Юргис Балтрушайтис – Чудом тени
- V: Some Verses: To The Author Parthenius by William Alexander
- Sonnet Vi
- To A Young Friend, On His Arriving At Cambridge Wet, When No Rain Had Fallen There by William Cowper
- Resolution And Independence by William Wordsworth
- Иннокентий Анненский – Леконт де Лиль. Пускай избитый зверь, влачася на цепочке
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
- Recollection
- Practising The Anthem
- Practising Anthem
- Peace
- On Australian Hills
- Mirage
- Memoriam
- Mates
- Lord Nevils Advice
- Lord Nevil039s Advice
- Looking In The Fire
- Looking Fire
- Learn
- Last Battle Cid
- Influence
- Individuality
- In Memoriam
- Honour
- Home Sick
- Holy Communion
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.