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.
A few random poems:
- The Pet-Lamb by William Wordsworth
- Robert Burns: The Holy Fair:
- Юргис Балтрушайтис – Молись в ночи без плача о заре
- Sleeping for Kafka by Nin Andrews
- The Gardener XXXIV: Do Not Go, My Love by Rabindranath Tagore
- On the Subject of Poetry by W. S. Merwin
- Rita And The Rifle by Mahmoud Darwish
- I have been tricked by flying too close by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Silvia by William Shakespeare
- Нина Воронель – Вечная мерзлота
- To A Young Writer by Yvor Winters
- Still Life by Piera Chen
- Альфред Теннисон – Волшебница Шалот
- Skunk Hour by Robert Lowell
- Release by Marie Starr
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
- Otho The Great – Act II poem – John Keats poems
- Otho The Great – Act I poem – John Keats poems
- On Visiting The Tomb Of Burns poem – John Keats poems
- On Receiving A Laurel Crown From Leigh Hunt poem – John Keats poems
- On Receiving A Curious Shell poem – John Keats poems
- On Hearing The Bag-Pipe And Seeing “The Stranger” Played At Inverary poem – John Keats poems
- On Death poem – John Keats poems
- On A Dream poem – John Keats poems
- Ode. Written On The Blank Page Before Beaumont And Fletcher’s Tragi-Comedy ‘The Fair Maid Of The In poem – John Keats poems
- Ode To Apollo poem – John Keats poems
- O Blush Not So! poem – John Keats poems
- Lines Written In The Highlands After A Visit To Burns’s Country poem – John Keats poems
- Lines To Fanny poem – John Keats poems
- Lines Rhymed In A Letter From Oxford poem – John Keats poems
- Lines On Seeing A Lock Of Milton’s Hair poem – John Keats poems
- Lamia. Part II poem – John Keats poems
- Lamia. Part I poem – John Keats poems
- King Stephen poem – John Keats poems
- Isabella; Or, The Pot Of Basil: A Story From Boccaccio poem – John Keats poems
- I Stood Tip-Toe Upon A Little Hill poem – John Keats poems
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.