With A Copy Of Shakespeares Sonnets On Leaving College
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) As one of some fat tillage dispossessed, Weighing the yield of these four faded years, If any ask what fruit seems loveliest, What lasting gold among the garnered ears, — Ah, then I’ll say what hours I had of thine, Therein I reaped Time’s richest revenue, Read in thy […]
Vivien
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) Her eyes under their lashes were blue pools Fringed round with lilies; her bright hair unfurled Clothed her as sunshine clothes the summer world. Her robes were gauzes — gold and green and gules, All furry things flocked round her, from her hand Nibbling their foods and fawning at […]
Translations Dante Inferno Canto Xxvi
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) Florence, rejoice! For thou o’er land and sea So spread’st thy pinions that the fame of thee Hath reached no less into the depths of Hell. So noble were the five I found to dwell Therein — thy sons — whence shame accrues to me And no great praise […]
To England At The Outbreak Of The Balkan War
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) A cloud has lowered that shall not soon pass o’er. The world takes sides: whether for impious aims With Tyranny whose bloody toll enflames A generous people to heroic war; Whether with Freedom, stretched in her own gore, Whose pleading hands and suppliant distress Still offer hearts that thirst […]
Tithonus
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) So when the verdure of his life was shed, With all the grace of ripened manlihead, And on his locks, but now so lovable, Old age like desolating winter fell, Leaving them white and flowerless and forlorn: Then from his bed the Goddess of the Morn Softly withheld, yet […]
The Old Lowe House Staten Island
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) Another prospect pleased the builder’s eye, And Fashion tenanted (where Fashion wanes) Here in the sorrowful suburban lanes When first these gables rose against the sky. Relic of a romantic taste gone by, This stately monument alone remains, Vacant, with lichened walls and window-panes Blank as the windows of […]
The Nympholept
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) There was a boy — not above childish fears — With steps that faltered now and straining ears, Timid, irresolute, yet dauntless still, Who one bright dawn, when each remotest hill Stood sharp and clear in Heaven’s unclouded blue And all Earth shimmered with fresh-beaded dew, Risen in the […]
The Hosts
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) 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 […]
The Bayadere
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) Flaked, drifting clouds hide not the full moon’s rays More than her beautiful bright limbs were hid By the light veils they burned and blushed amid, Skilled to provoke in soft, lascivious ways, And there was invitation in her voice And laughing lips and wonderful dark eyes, As though […]
The Aisne
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) 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 […]
Tezcotzinco
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) Though thou art now a ruin bare and cold, Thou wert sometime the garden of a king. The birds have sought a lovelier place to sing. The flowers are few. It was not so of old. It was not thus when hand in hand there strolled Through arbors perfumed […]
Sonnet Xv
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) Above the ruin of God’s holy place, Where man-forsaken lay the bleeding rood, Whose hands, when men had craved substantial food, Gave not, nor folded when they cried, Embrace, I saw exalted in the latter days Her whom west winds with natal foam bedewed, Wafted toward Cyprus, lily-breasted, nude, […]
Sonnet Xiv
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) IT may be for the world of weeds and tares And dearth in Nature of sweet Beauty’s rose That oft as Fortune from ten thousand shows One from the train of Love’s true courtiers Straightway on him who gazes, unawares, Deep wonder seizes and swift trembling grows, Reft by […]
Sonnet Xiii
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) I fancied, while you stood conversing there, Superb, in every attitude a queen, Her ermine thus Boadicea bare, So moved amid the multitude Faustine. My life, whose whole religion Beauty is, Be charged with sin if ever before yours A lesser feeling crossed my mind than his Who owning […]
Sonnet Xii
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) Like as a dryad, from her native bole Coming at dusk, when the dim stars emerge, To a slow river at whose silent verge Tall poplars tremble and deep grasses roll, Come thou no less and, kneeling in a shoal Of the freaked flag and meadow buttercup, Bend till […]
Sonnet Xi
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) When among creatures fair of countenance Love comes enformed in such proud character, So far as other beauty yields to her, So far the breast with fiercer longing pants; I bless the spot, and hour, and circumstance, That wed desire to a thing so high, And say, Glad soul, […]
Sonnet X
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) A splendor, flamelike, born to be pursued, With palms extent for amorous charity And eyes incensed with love for all they see, A wonder more to be adored than wooed, On whom the grace of conscious womanhood Adorning every little thing she does Sits like enchantment, making glorious A […]
Sonnet Viii
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) Oft as by chance, a little while apart The pall of empty, loveless hours withdrawn, Sweet Beauty, opening on the impoverished heart, Beams like the jewel on the breast of dawn: Not though high heaven should rend would deeper awe Fill me than penetrates my spirit thus, Nor all […]
Sonnet Vii
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) To me, a pilgrim on that journey bound Whose stations Beauty’s bright examples are, As of a silken city famed afar Over the sands for wealth and holy ground, Came the report of one — a woman crowned With all perfection, blemishless and high, As the full moon amid […]
Sonnet Vi
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) Give me the treble of thy horns and hoofs, The ponderous undertones of ‘bus and tram, A garret and a glimpse across the roofs Of clouds blown eastward over Notre Dame, The glad-eyed streets and radiant gatherings Where I drank deep the bliss of being young, The strife and […]
Sonnet V
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) A tide of beauty with returning May Floods the fair city; from warm pavements fume Odors endeared; down avenues in bloom The chestnut-trees with phallic spires are gay. Over the terrace flows the thronged cafe; The boulevards are streams of hurrying sound; And through the streets, like veins when […]
Sonnet Iv
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) Up at his attic sill the South wind came And days of sun and storm but never peace. Along the town’s tumultuous arteries He heard the heart-throbs of a sentient frame: Each night the whistles in the bay, the same Whirl of incessant wheels and clanging cars: For smoke […]
Sonnet Iii
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) There was a youth around whose early way White angels hung in converse and sweet choir, Teaching in summer clouds his thought to stray, — In cloud and far horizon to desire. His life was nursed in beauty, like the stream Born of clear showers and the mountain dew, […]
Sonnet Ii
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) Her courts are by the flux of flaming ways, Between the rivers and the illumined sky Whose fervid depths reverberate from on high Fierce lustres mingled in a fiery haze. They mark it inland; blithe and fair of face Her suitors follow, guessing by the glare Beyond the hilltops […]
Sonnet I
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) Down the strait vistas where a city street Fades in pale dust and vaporous distances, Stained with far fumes the light grows less and less And the sky reddens round the day’s retreat. Now out of orient chambers, cool and sweet, Like Nature’s pure lustration, Dusk comes down. Now […]
Sonnet 12
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) 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 […]
Sonnet 11
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) 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 […]
Sonnet 10
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) 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 […]
Sonnet 08
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) 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 […]
Sonnet 07
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) 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 […]
Sonnet 05
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) 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 […]
Sonnet 04
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) 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 […]
Sonnet 03
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) 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 […]
Sonnet 02
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) 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 […]
Sonnet 01
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) 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 […]
Maktoob
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) 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 […]
Lyonesse
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) In Lyonesse was beauty enough, men say: Long Summer loaded the orchards to excess, And fertile lowlands lengthening far away, In Lyonesse. Came a term to that land’s old favoredness: Past the sea-walls, crumbled in thundering spray, Rolled the green waves, ravening, merciless. Through bearded boughs immobile […]
Broceliande
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) Broceliande! in the perilous beauty of silence and menacing shade, Thou art set on the shores of the sea down the haze of horizons untravelled, unscanned. Untroubled, untouched with the woes of this world are the moon-marshalled hosts that invade Broceliande. Only at dusk, when lavender clouds in […]
At The Tomb Of Napoleon
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) I stood beside his sepulchre whose fame, Hurled over Europe once on bolt and blast, Now glows far off as storm-clouds overpast Glow in the sunset flushed with glorious flame. Has Nature marred his mould? Can Art acclaim No hero now, no man with whom men side As with […]
Antinous
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) Stretched on a sunny bank he lay at rest, Ferns at his elbow, lilies round his knees, With sweet flesh patterned where the cool turf pressed, Flowerlike crept o’er with emerald aphides. Single he couched there, to his circling flocks Piping at times some happy shepherd’s tune, Nude, with […]