Poems Alan Seeger (1917) Edited for the Web by Bob Blair

The Aisne (1914-15)

WE FIRST saw fire on the tragic slopes

Where the flood-tide of France's early gain,

Big with wrecked promise and abandoned hopes,

Broke in a surf of blood along the Aisne.

The charge her heroes left us, we assumed,

What, dying, they reconquered, we preserved,

In the chill trenches, harried, shelled, entombed,

Winter came down on us, but no man swerved.

Winter came down on us. The low clouds, torn

In the stark branches of the riven pines,

Blurred the white rockets that from dusk till morn

Traced the wide curve of the close-grappling lines.

In rain, and fog that on the withered hill

Froze before dawn, the lurking foe drew down;

Or light snows fell that made forlorner still

The ravaged country and the ruined town;

Or the long clouds would end. Intensely fair,

The winter constellations blazing forth -- -

Perseus, the Twins, Orion, the Great Bear -- -

Gleamed on our bayonets pointing to the north.

And the lone sentinel would start and soar

On wings of strong emotion as he knew

That kinship with the stars that only War

Is great enough to lift man's spirit to.

And ever down the curving front, aglow

With the pale rockets' intermittent light,

He heard, like distant thunder, growl and grow

The rumble of far battles in the night, -- -

Rumors, reverberant, indistinct, remote,

Borne from red fields whose martial names have won

The power to thrill like a far trumpet-note, -- -

Vic, Vailly, Soupir, Hurtelise, Craonne . . .

Craonne, before thy cannon-swept plateau,

Where like sere leaves lay strewn September's dead,

I found for all dear things I forfeited

A recompense I would not now forego.

For that high fellowship was ours then

With those who, championing another's good,

More than dull Peace or its poor votaries could,

Taught us the dignity of being men.

There we drained deeper the deep cup of life,

And on sublimer summits came to learn,

After soft things, the terrible and stern,

After sweet Love, the majesty of Strife;

There where we faced under those frowning heights

The blast that maims, the hurricane that kills;

There where the watchlights on the winter hills

Flickered like balefire through inclement nights;

There where, firm links in the unyielding chain,

Where fell the long-planned blow and fell in vain -- -

Hearts worthy of the honor and the trial,

We helped to hold the lines along the Aisne.

Alan Seeger

Champagne (1914-15)

IN THE glad revels, in the happy fetes,

When cheeks are flushed, and glasses gilt and pearled

With the sweet wine of France that concentrates

The sunshine and the beauty of the world,

Drink sometimes, you whose footsteps yet may tread

The undisturbed, delightful paths of Earth,

To those whose blood, in pious duty shed,

Hallows the soil where that same wine had birth.

Here, by devoted comrades laid away,

Along our lines they slumber where they fell,

Beside the crater at the Ferme d'Alger

And up the bloody slopes of La Pompelle,

And round the city whose cathedral towers

The enemies of Beauty dared profane,

And in the mat of multicolored flowers

That clothe the sunny chalk-fields of Champagne.

Under the little crosses where they rise

The soldier rests. Now round him undismayed

The cannon thunders, and at night he lies

At peace beneath the eternal fusillade. . . .

That other generations might possess -- -

From shame and menace free in years to come -- -

A richer heritage of happiness,

He marched to that heroic martyrdom.

Esteeming less the forfeit that he paid

Than undishonored that his flag might float

Over the towers of liberty, he made

His breast the bulwark and his blood the moat.

Obscurely sacrificed, his nameless tomb,

Bare of the sculptor's art, the poet's lines,

Summer shall flush with poppy-fields in bloom,

And Autumn yellow with maturing vines.

There the grape-pickers at their harvesting

Shall lightly tread and load their wicker trays,

Blessing his memory as they toil and sing

In the slant sunshine of October days. . . .

I love to think that if my blood should be

So privileged to sink where his has sunk,

I shall not pass from Earth entirely,

But when the banquet rings, when healths are drunk,

And faces that the joys of living fill

Glow radiant with laughter and good cheer,

In beaming cups some spark of me shall still

Brim toward the lips that once I held so dear.

So shall one coveting no higher plane

Than nature clothes in color and flesh and tone,

Even from the grave put upward to attain

The dreams youth cherished and missed and might have known;

And that strong need that strove unsatisfied

Toward earthly beauty in all forms it wore,

Not death itself shall utterly divide

From the beloved shapes it thirsted for.

Alas, how many an adept for whose arms

Life held delicious offerings perished here,

How many in the prime of all that charms,

Crowned with all gifts that conquer and endear!

Honor them not so much with tears and flowers,

But you with whom the sweet fulfilment lies,

Where in the anguish of atrocious hours

Turned their last thoughts and closed their dying eyes,

Rather when music on bright gatherings lays

Its tender spell, and joy is uppermost,

Be mindful of the men they were, and raise

Your glasses to them in one silent toast.

Drink to them -- - amorous of dear Earth as well,

They asked no tribute lovelier than this -- -

And in the wine that ripened where they fell,

Oh, frame your lips as though it were a kiss.

Alan Seeger, Champagne, France, July, 1915.

The Hosts

PURGED, with the life they left, of all

That makes life paltry and mean and small,

In their new dedication charged

With something heightened, enriched, enlarged,

That lends a light to their lusty brows

And a song to the rhythm of their tramping feet,

These are the men that have taken vows,

These are the hardy, the flower, the elite, -- -

These are the men that are moved no more

By the will to traffic and grasp and store

And ring with pleasure and wealth and love

The circles that self is the center of;

But they are moved by the powers that force

The sea forever to ebb and rise,

That hold Arcturus in his course,

And marshal at noon in tropic skies

The clouds that tower on some snow-capped chain

And drift out over the peopled plain.

They are big with the beauty of cosmic things.

Mark how their columns surge! They seem

To follow the goddess with outspread wings

That points toward Glory, the soldier's dream.

With bayonets bare and flags unfurled,

They scale the summits of the world

And fade on the farthest golden height

In fair horizons full of light.

Comrades in arms there -- - friend or foe -- -

That trod the perilous, toilsome trail

Through a world of ruin and blood and woe

In the years of the great decision -- - hail!

Friend or foe, it shall matter nought;

This only matters, in fine: we fought.

For we were young and in love or strife

Sought exultation and craved excess:

To sound the wildest debauch in life

We staked our youth and its loveliness.

Let idlers argue the right and wrong

And weigh what merit our causes had.

Putting our faith in being strong -- -

Above the level of good and bad -- -

For us, we battled and burned and killed

Because evolving Nature willed,

And it was our pride and boast to be

The instruments of Destiny.

There was a stately drama writ

By the hand that peopled the earth and air

And set the stars in the infinite

And made night gorgeous and morning fair,

And all that had sense to reason knew

That bloody drama must be gone through.

Some sat and watched how the action veered -- -

Waited, profited, trembled, cheered -- -

We saw not clearly nor understood,

But yielding ourselves to the masterhand,

Each in his part as best he could,

We played it through as the author planned.

Alan Seeger

Maktoob

A SHELL surprised our post one day

And killed a comrade at my side.

My heart was sick to see the way

      He suffered as he died.

I dug about the place he fell,

And found, no bigger than my thumb,

A fragment of the splintered shell

      In warm aluminum.

I melted it, and made a mould,

And poured it in the opening,

And worked it, when the cast was cold,

      Into a shapely ring.

And when my ring was smooth and bright,

Holding it on a rounded stick,

For seal, I bade a Turco write

      Maktoob in Arabic.

Maktoob! "'Tis written!" . . . So they think,

These children of the desert, who

From its immense expanses drink

      Some of its grandeur too.

Within the book of Destiny,

Whose leaves are time, whose cover, space,

The day when you shall cease to be,

      The hour, the mode, the place,

Are marked, they say; and you shall not

By taking thought or using wit

Alter that certain fate one jot,

      Postpone or conjure it.

Learn to drive fear, then, from your heart.

If you must perish, know, O man,

'Tis an inevitable part

      Of the predestined plan.

And, seeing that through the ebon door

Once only you may pass, and meet

Of those that have gone through before

      The mighty, the elite -- ---

Guard that not bowed nor blanched with fear

You enter, but serene, erect,

As you would wish most to appear

      To those you most respect.

So die as though your funeral

Ushered you through the doors that led

Into a stately banquet hall

      Where heroes banqueted;

And it shall all depend therein

Whether you come as slave or lord,

If they acclaim you as their kin

      Or spurn you from their board.

So, when the order comes: "Attack!"

And the assaulting wave deploys,

And the heart trembles to look back

      On life and all its joys;

Or in a ditch that they seem near

To find, and round your shallow trough

Drop the big shells that you can hear

      Coming a half mile off;

When, not to hear, some try to talk,

And some to clean their guns, or sing,

And some dig deeper in the chalk -- -

      I look upon my ring:

And nerves relax that were most tense,

And Death comes whistling down unheard,

As I consider all the sense

      Held in that mystic word.

And it brings, quieting like balm

My heart whose flutterings have ceased,

The resignation and the calm

      And wisdom of the East.

Alan Seeger

I Have a Rendezvous with Death . . .

I HAVE a rendezvous with Death

At some disputed barricade,

When Spring comes back with rustling shade

And apple-blossoms fill the air -- -

I have a rendezvous with Death

When Spring brings back blue days and fair.

It may be he shall take my hand

And lead me into his dark land

And close my eyes and quench my breath -- -

It may be I shall pass him still.

I have a rendezvous with Death

On some scarred slope of battered hill,

When Spring comes round again this year

And the first meadow-flowers appear.

God knows 'twere better to be deep

Pillowed in silk and scented down,

Where Love throbs out in blissful sleep,

Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,

Where hushed awakenings are dear . . .

But I've a rendezvous with Death

At midnight in some flaming town,

When Spring trips north again this year,

And I to my pledged word am true,

I shall not fail that rendezvous.

Alan Seeger

Sonnet I

SIDNEY, in whom the heyday of romance

Came to its precious and most perfect flower,

Whether you tourneyed with victorious lance

Or brought sweet roundelays to Stella's bower,

I give myself some credit for the way

I have kept clean of what enslaves and lowers,

Shunned the ideals of our present day

And studied those that were esteemed in yours;

For, turning from the mob that buys Success

By sacrificing all Life's better part,

Down the free roads of human happiness

I frolicked, poor of purse but light of heart,

And lived in strict devotion all along

To my three idols -- - Love and Arms and Song.

Alan Seeger

Sonnet II

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.

Alan Seeger

Sonnet III

WHY should you be astonished that my heart,

Plunged for so long in darkness and in dearth,

Should be revived by you, and stir and start

As by warm April now, reviving Earth?

I am the field of undulating grass

And you the gentle perfumed breath of Spring,

And all my lyric being, when you pass,

Is bowed and filled with sudden murmuring.

I asked you nothing and expected less,

But, with that deep, impassioned tenderness

Of one approaching what he most adores,

I only wished to lose a little space

All thought of my own life, and in its place

To live and dream and have my joy in yours.

Alan Seeger

Sonnet IV

To . . . in church

IF I was drawn here from a distant place,

'Twas not to pray nor hear our friend's address,

But, gazing once more on your winsome face,

To worship there Ideal Loveliness.

On that pure shrine that has too long ignored

The gifts that once I brought so frequently

I lay this votive offering, to record

How sweet your quiet beauty seemed to me.

Enchanting girl, my faith is not a thing

By futile prayers and vapid psalm-singing

To vent in crowded nave and public pew.

My creed is simple: that the world is fair,

And beauty the best thing to worship there,

And I confess it by adoring you.

Alan Seeger

Sonnet V

SEEING you have not come with me, nor spent

This day's suggestive beauty as we ought,

I have gone forth alone and been content

To make you mistress only of my thought.

And I have blessed the fate that was so kind

In my life's agitations to include

This moment's refuge where my sense can find

Refreshment, and my soul beatitude.

Oh, be my gentle love a little while!

Walk with me sometimes. Let me see you smile.

Watching some night under a wintry sky,

Before the charge, or on the bed of pain,

These blessed memories shall revive again

And be a power to cheer and fortify.

Alan Seeger

Sonnet VI

OH, YOU are more desirable to me

Than all I staked in an impulsive hour,

Making my youth the sport of chance, to be

Blighted or torn in its most perfect flower;

For I think less of what that chance may bring

Than how, before returning into fire,

To make my dearest memory of the thing

That is but now my ultimate desire.

And in old times I should have prayed to her

Whose haunt the groves of windy Cyprus were,

To prosper me and crown with good success

My will to make of you the rose-twined bowl

From whose inebriating brim my soul

Shall drink its last of earthly happiness.

Alan Seeger

Sonnet VII

THERE have been times when I could storm and plead,

But you shall never hear me supplicate.

These long months that have magnified my need

Have made my asking less importunate,

For now small favors seem to me so great

That not the courteous lovers of old time

Were more content to rule themselves and wait,

Easing desire with discourse and sweet rhyme.

Nay, be capricious, willful; have no fear

To wound me with unkindness done or said,

Lest mutual devotion make too dear

My life that hangs by a so slender thread,

And happy love unnerve me before May

For that stern part that I have yet to play.

Alan Seeger

Sonnet VIII

OH, LOVE of woman, you are known to be

A passion sent to plague the hearts of men;

For every one you bring felicity

Bringing rebuffs and wretchedness to ten.

I have been oft where human life sold cheap

And seen men's brains spilled out about their ears

And yet that never cost me any sleep;

I lived untroubled and I shed no tears.

Fools prate how war is an atrocious thing;

I always knew that nothing it implied

Equalled the agony of suffering

Of him who loves and loves unsatisfied.

War is a refuge to a heart like this;

Love only tells it what true torture is.

Alan Seeger

Sonnet IX

WELL, seeing I have no hope, then let us part;

Having long taught my flesh to master fear,

I should have learned by now to rule my heart,

Although, Heaven knows, 'tis not so easy near.

Oh, you were made to make men miserable

And torture those who would have joy in you,

But I, who could have loved you, dear, so well,

Take pride in being a good loser too;

And it has not been wholly unsuccess,

For I have rescued from forgetfulness

Some moments of this precious time that flies,

Adding to my past wealth of memory

The pretty way you once looked up at me,

Your low, sweet voice, your smile, and your dear eyes.

Alan Seeger

Sonnet X

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.

Alan Seeger

Sonnet XI

On Returning to the Front after Leave

APART sweet women (for whom Heaven be blessed),

Comrades, you cannot think how thin and blue

Look the leftovers of mankind that rest,

Now that the cream has been skimmed off in you.

War has its horrors, but has this of good -- -

That its sure processes sort out and bind

Brave hearts in one intrepid brotherhood

And leave the shams and imbeciles behind.

Now turn we joyful to the great attacks,

Not only that we face in a fair field

Our valiant foe and all his deadly tools,

But also that we turn disdainful backs

On that poor world we scorn yet die to shield -- -

That world of cowards, hypocrites, and fools.

Alan Seeger

Sonnet XII

CLOUDS rosy-tinted in the setting sun,

Depths of the azure eastern sky between,

Plains where the poplar-bordered highways run,

Patched with a hundred tints of brown and green, -- -

Beauty of Earth, when in thy harmonies

The cannon's note has ceased to be a part,

I shall return once more and bring to these

The worship of an undivided heart.

Of those sweet potentialities that wait

For my heart's deep desire to fecundate

I shall resume the search, if Fortune grants;

And the great cities of the world shall yet

Be golden frames for me in which to set

New masterpieces of more rare romance.

Alan Seeger