A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916)
He faints with hope and fear. It is the hour.
Distant, across the thundering organ-swell,
In sweet discord from the cathedral-tower,
Fall the faint chimes and the thrice-sequent bell.
Over the crowd his eye uneasy roves.
He sees a plume, a fur; his heart dilates —
Soars . . . and then sinks again. It is not hers he loves.
She will not come, the woman that he waits.
Braided with streams of silver incense rise
The antique prayers and ponderous antiphones.
`Gloria Patri’ echoes to the skies;
`Nunc et in saecula’ the choir intones.
He marks not the monotonous refrain,
The priest that serves nor him that celebrates,
But ever scans the aisle for his blonde head. . . . In vain!
She will not come, the woman that he waits.
How like a flower seemed the perfumed place
Where the sweet flesh lay loveliest to kiss;
And her white hands in what delicious ways,
With what unfeigned caresses, answered his!
Each tender charm intolerable to lose,
Each happy scene his fancy recreates.
And he calls out her name and spreads his arms . . . No use!
She will not come, the woman that he waits.
But the long vespers close. The priest on high
Raises the thing that Christ’s own flesh enforms;
And down the Gothic nave the crowd flows by
And through the portal’s carven entry swarms.
Maddened he peers upon each passing face
Till the long drab procession terminates.
No princess passes out with proud majestic pace.
She has not come, the woman that he waits.
Back in the empty silent church alone
He walks with aching heart. A white-robed boy
Puts out the altar-candles one by one,
Even as by inches darkens all his joy.
He dreams of the sweet night their lips first met,
And groans — and turns to leave — and hesitates . . .
Poor stricken heart, he will, he can not fancy yet
She will not come, the woman that he waits.
But in an arch where deepest shadows fall
He sits and studies the old, storied panes,
And the calm crucifix that from the wall
Looks on a world that quavers and complains.
Hopeless, abandoned, desolate, aghast,
On modes of violent death he meditates.
And the tower-clock tolls five, and he admits at last,
She will not come, the woman that he waits.
Through the stained rose the winter daylight dies,
And all the tide of anguish unrepressed
Swells in his throat and gathers in his eyes;
He kneels and bows his head upon his breast,
And feigns a prayer to hide his burning tears,
While the satanic voice reiterates
`Tonight, tomorrow, nay, nor all the impending years,
She will not come,’ the woman that he waits.
Fond, fervent heart of life’s enamored spring,
So true, so confident, so passing fair,
That thought of Love as some sweet, tender thing,
And not as war, red tooth and nail laid bare,
How in that hour its innocence was slain,
How from that hour our disillusion dates,
When first we learned thy sense, ironical refrain,
She will not come, the woman that he waits.
A few random poems:
- Ярослав Смеляков – В защиту домино
- On The Death Of A Young Lady Of Five Years Of Age by Phillis Wheatley
- Robert Burns: Ode For General Washington’s Birthday :
- Владимир Британишский – Смешанный брак
- Владимир Британишский – А Новый год мы встретили в лесу
- Sweet Love Is Dead poem – Alfred Austin
- All The Dead Dears by Sylvia Plath
- Sonnet LXVI by William Shakespeare
- Cascade by Robert Desnos
- Ольга Берггольц – Я тайно и горько ревную
- Вера Звягинцева – Околдовано сердце моё
- Sonnet Vi
- Robert Burns: A Dream: Thoughts, words, and deeds, the Statute blames with reason; But surely Dreams were ne’er indicted Treason. On reading, in the public papers, the Laureate’s Ode, with the other parade of June 4th, 1786, the Author was no sooner dropt asleep, than he imagined himself transported to the Birth-day Levee: and, in his dreaming fancy, made the following Address:
- gazebo.html
- Girl Child – An Alternate Reality by Rekha Seshadri
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
- Низами Гянджеви – Пускай охотится на всех газелеоких
- Низами Гянджеви – От сердца всю ночь мечтал
- Низами Гянджеви – О милый друг, давно пленен я
- Низами Гянджеви – О кипарис с плавной поступью мри
- Низами Гянджеви – Ну, как живешь
- Низами Гянджеви – Не горюй, ибо друг есть
- Низами Гянджеви – Мне ночь не в ночь, мне в ночь невмочь
- Низами Гянджеви – Месяц неполный прошел
- Низами Гянджеви – Лишь с луной сравниться
- Низами Гянджеви – Лица серебряный овал в сиянье покажи
- Низами Гянджеви – Лейли и Меджнун
- Низами Гянджеви – Коль мы на весах любви
- Низами Гянджеви – Когда ты локоны свои распустишь
- Низами Гянджеви – Когда ее ароматом неслышно ветер повеет
- Низами Гянджеви – Из месяца лишь день прошел
- Низами Гянджеви – Искендер-наме – Страница 9 из 15
- Низами Гянджеви – Искендер-наме – Страница 7 из 15
- Низами Гянджеви – Искендер-наме – Страница 5 из 15
- Низами Гянджеви – Искендер-наме – Страница 3 из 15
- Низами Гянджеви – Искендер-наме – Страница 15 из 15
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.