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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• Robert Burns: Lines On The Commemoration Of Rodney’s Victory: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Thanksgiving For A National Victory: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Lines Inscribed In A Lady’s Pocket Almanac: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: On Commissary Goldie’s Brains: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: The True Loyal Natives: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: The Soldier’s Return: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Meg O’ The Mill : Another Version by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Meg O’ The Mill: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Lovely Young Jessie: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Lord Gregory: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Open The Door To Me, Oh: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Wandering Willie: Revised Version by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Wandering Willie: First Version by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Sonnet Written On The Author’s Birthday, : On hearing a Thrush sing in his Morning Walk. by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Braw Lads O’ Galla Water: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: On Politics: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Poortith Cauld And Restless Love: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: A Tippling Ballad: On the Duke of Brunswick’s Breaking up his Camp, and the defeat of the Austrians, by Dumourier, November 1792. by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Here’s A Health To Them That’s Awa: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Duncan Gray: by Robert Burns

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