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 trenches, harried, shelled, entombed,
Winter came down on us, but no man swerved.
Winter came down on us. The low clouds, torn
In the stark branches of the riven pines,
Blurred the white rockets that from dusk till morn
Traced the wide curve of the close-grappling lines.
In rain, and fog that on the withered hill
Froze before dawn, the lurking foe drew down;
Or light snows fell that made forlorner still
The ravaged country and the ruined town;
Or the long clouds would end. Intensely fair,
The winter constellations blazing forth —
Perseus, the Twins, Orion, the Great Bear —
Gleamed on our bayonets pointing to the north.
And the lone sentinel would start and soar
On wings of strong emotion as he knew
That kinship with the stars that only War
Is great enough to lift man’s spirit to.
And ever down the curving front, aglow
With the pale rockets’ intermittent light,
He heard, like distant thunder, growl and grow
The rumble of far battles in the night, —
Rumors, reverberant, indistinct, remote,
Borne from red fields whose martial names have won
The power to thrill like a far trumpet-note, —
Vic, Vailly, Soupir, Hurtelise, Craonne . . .
Craonne, before thy cannon-swept plateau,
Where like sere leaves lay strewn September’s dead,
I found for all dear things I forfeited
A recompense I would not now forego.
For that high fellowship was ours then
With those who, championing another’s good,
More than dull Peace or its poor votaries could,
Taught us the dignity of being men.
There we drained deeper the deep cup of life,
And on sublimer summits came to learn,
After soft things, the terrible and stern,
After sweet Love, the majesty of Strife;
There where we faced under those frowning heights
The blast that maims, the hurricane that kills;
There where the watchlights on the winter hills
Flickered like balefire through inclement nights;
There where, firm links in the unyielding chain,
Where fell the long-planned blow and fell in vain —
Hearts worthy of the honor and the trial,
We helped to hold the lines along the Aisne.
A few random poems:
- Composed In The Valley Near Dover, On The Day Of Landing by William Wordsworth
- Pan’s Lament by Rose Mary Boehm
- Sonnet 108: What’s in the brain that ink may character by William Shakespeare
- Олег Бундур – Доброта
- Song—Sweet Afton by Robert Burns
- Robert Burns: Epigram Addressed To An Artist:
- Валерий Брюсов – Гребцы триремы
- Young Man’s Song by William Butler Yeats
- Dans les filets de midi by Martine Morillon-Carreau
- Penmaen Pool poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- At Tynemouth Priory by William Lisle Bowles
- Михаил Ломоносов – Лишь только дневной шум замолк
- Rendezvous
- Алишер Навои – О сердце, столько на земле
- Precious Pearl by Vaishnavi Prakash
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
- What is Creativity Anyway and How Come the Human Mind is So Good at It?
- Poetry and the Power of Words
- Stop Looking For Broken Heart Poems and Quotes and Win Your Ex Back Instead!
- How to Become an Inspiration
- Finding Your Creative Self
- English Literature for Shaping Your Ideas
- Towards Understanding, Through Poetry
- Creativity Leads to Family Enrichment
- Heal Your Broken Heart With Heart Touching Poems
- Poetry of Our Time
- Quietness, Something to Consider… Or Not (2 Poems)
- Kids and Teens and the Phone: Creative Solutions for Your Family
- Teaching Children to Write by Free Writing
- The Dawn Of American Literature
- Seven Deadly Signs of Poetry Scams
- The Key Role of Creativity in Advertising
- Development of Indian English Poetry
- Funny Networking Poem and Do’s and Don’ts
- City Times and Other Poems
- Flowers notebook
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.