Sonnet Xvi Who Shall Invoke Her
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) Who shall invoke her, who shall be her priest, With single rites the common debt to pay? On some green headland fronting to the East Our fairest boy shall kneel at break of day. Naked, uplifting in a laden tray New milk and honey and sweet-tinctured wine, Not without […]
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A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) Oft as by chance, a little while apart The pall of empty, loveless hours withdrawn, Sweet Beauty, opening on the impoverished heart, Beams like the jewel on the breast of dawn: Not though high heaven should rend would deeper awe Fill me than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 Ix
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) Amid the florid multitude her face Was like the full moon seen behind the lace Of orchard boughs where clouded blossoms part When Spring shines in the world and in the heart. As the full-moon-beams to the ferny floor Of summer woods through flower and foliage pour, So to […]
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 06
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) 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 […]
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 […]
Resurgam
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) Exiled afar from youth and happy love, If Death should ravish my fond spirit hence I have no doubt but, like a homing dove, It would return to its dear residence, And through a thousand stars find out the road Back into earthly flesh that was its loved abode. […]
Rendezvous
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) I have a rendezvous with Death At some disputed barricade, 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 […]
On The Cliffs Newport
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) Tonight a shimmer of gold lies mantled o’er Smooth lovely Ocean. Through the lustrous gloom A savor steals from linden trees in bloom And gardens ranged at many a palace door. Proud walls rise here, and, where the moonbeams pour Their pale enchantment down the dim coast-line, Terrace and […]
On A Theme In The Greek Anthology
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) Thy petals yet are closely curled, Rose of the world, Around their scented, golden core; Nor yet has Summer purpled o’er Thy tender clusters that begin To swell within The dewy vine-leaves’ early screen Of sheltering green. O hearts that are Love’s helpless prey, While yet you may, […]
Ode In Memory Of The American Volunteers Fallen For France
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) I Ay, it is fitting on this holiday, Commemorative of our soldier dead, When — with sweet flowers of our New England May Hiding the lichened stones by fifty years made gray — Their graves in every town are garlanded, That pious tribute should be given too To […]
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 […]
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, […]
La Nue
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) Oft when sweet music undulated round, Like the full moon out of a perfumed sea Thine image from the waves of blissful sound Rose and thy sudden light illumined me. And in the country, leaf and flower and air Would alter and the eternal shape emerge; Because they […]
Kyrenaikos
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) Lay me where soft Cyrene rambles down In grove and garden to the sapphire sea; Twine yellow roses for the drinker’s crown; Let music reach and fair heads circle me, Watching blue ocean where the white sails steer Fruit-laden forth or with the wares and news Of merchant cities […]
Juvenilia An Ode To Natural Beauty
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) There is a power whose inspiration fills Nature’s fair fabric, sun- and star-inwrought, Like airy dew ere any drop distils, Like perfume in the laden flower, like aught Unseen which interfused throughout the whole Becomes its quickening pulse and principle and soul. Now when, the drift of old desire […]
I Loved
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) I loved illustrious cities and the crowds That eddy through their incandescent nights. I loved remote horizons with far clouds Girdled, and fringed about with snowy heights. I loved fair women, their sweet, conscious ways Of wearing among hands that covet and plead The rose ablossom at the rainbow’s […]
I Have A Rendezvous With Death
A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916) 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 […]