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:
- O Star of France. by Walt Whitman
- The Swarm by Sylvia Plath
- Prospective Immigrants Please Note
- The Gardener XIX: You Walked by Rabindranath Tagore
- Hart-Leap Well by William Wordsworth
- Шекспир – Я не хочу хвалить любовь мою – Сонет 21
- Epistle II: To A Lady (Of the Characters of Women) poem – Alexander Pope
- Epigram pinned to Mrs. Riddell’s carriage by Robert Burns
- Владимир Высоцкий – Дорожный дневник: Часть II
- Вероника Тушнова – Тропа, петляя и пыля
- Deity of my dreams by Vasishta Sharma Gudi
- Василий Жуковский – Светлане
- To Eva Descending The Stair by Sylvia Plath
- I know The Music (unfinished) by Wilfred Owen
- Олег Бундур – Скука
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-flash-reverses-time.html
- que-sera-sera.html
- power-of-thought.html
- phantasm.html
- once_was_a_singer_for_god_remembering_nekia.html
- old-boy.html
- lost_love_is_never_lost.html
- long_i_waited_in_vain.html
- holiday_letter_for_a_poet_gone_to_war.html
- gratitudes_of_a_dozen_roses.html
- every_hour_henceforth.html
- einstein-defining-special-relativity.html
- cell-mate.html
- calling-the-spirits.html
- angel_of_christmas_love_shining_bright.html
- angel_of_better_days_to_come.html
- All Night in Savannah the Wind Wrote Poetry by Aberjhani
- a-tempest-in-a-teacup.html
- Eveleen’s Bower by Thomas Moore
- Erin! The Tear and the Smile in Thine Eyes by Thomas Moore
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.