Liebestod

A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916)

I who, conceived beneath another star,

Had been a prince and played with life, instead

Have been its slave, an outcast exiled far

From the fair things my faith has merited.

My ways have been the ways that wanderers tread

And those that make romance of poverty —

Soldier, I shared the soldier’s board and bed,

And Joy has been a thing more oft to me

Whispered by summer wind and summer sea

Than known incarnate in the hours it lies

All warm against our hearts and laughs into our eyes.

I know not if in risking my best days

I shall leave utterly behind me here

This dream that lightened me through lonesome ways

And that no disappointment made less dear;

Sometimes I think that, where the hilltops rear

Their white entrenchments back of tangled wire,

Behind the mist Death only can make clear,

There, like Brunhilde ringed with flaming fire,

Lies what shall ease my heart’s immense desire:

There, where beyond the horror and the pain

Only the brave shall pass, only the strong attain.

Truth or delusion, be it as it may,

Yet think it true, dear friends, for, thinking so,

That thought shall nerve our sinews on the day

When to the last assault our bugles blow:

Reckless of pain and peril we shall go,

Heads high and hearts aflame and bayonets bare,

And we shall brave eternity as though

Eyes looked on us in which we would seem fair —

One waited in whose presence we would wear,

Even as a lover who would be well-seen,

Our manhood faultless and our honor clean.

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Poems in English 

• Robert Burns: Sappho Redivivus: Fragment by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Pegasus At Wanlockhead: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Ode, Sacred To The Memory Of Mrs. Oswald Of Auchencruive: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Robin Shure In Hairst: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Versicles On Sign-Posts : by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: The Henpecked Husband: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Elegy On The Year 1788: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: The Poet’s Progress : A Poem In Embryo by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Written In Friars Carse Hermitage: On Nithside by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: The Parting Kiss: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: My Bonie Mary: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Auld Lang Syne: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: It Is Na, Jean, Thy Bonie Face: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: I Reign In Jeanie’s Bosom: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: The Fall Of The Leaf: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: A Mother’s Lament For the Death of Her Son.: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: O, Were I On Parnassus Hill: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: The Day Returns: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Epistle To Robert Graham, Esq., Of Fintry: Requesting a Favour by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: The Fete Champetre: by Robert Burns

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