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 have taken vows,
These are the hardy, the flower, the elite, —
These are the men that are moved no more
By the will to traffic and grasp and store
And ring with pleasure and wealth and love
The circles that self is the center of;
But they are moved by the powers that force
The sea forever to ebb and rise,
That hold Arcturus in his course,
And marshal at noon in tropic skies
The clouds that tower on some snow-capped chain
And drift out over the peopled plain.
They are big with the beauty of cosmic things.
Mark how their columns surge! They seem
To follow the goddess with outspread wings
That points toward Glory, the soldier’s dream.
With bayonets bare and flags unfurled,
They scale the summits of the world
And fade on the farthest golden height
In fair horizons full of light.
Comrades in arms there — friend or foe —
That trod the perilous, toilsome trail
Through a world of ruin and blood and woe
In the years of the great decision — hail!
Friend or foe, it shall matter nought;
This only matters, in fine: we fought.
For we were young and in love or strife
Sought exultation and craved excess:
To sound the wildest debauch in life
We staked our youth and its loveliness.
Let idlers argue the right and wrong
And weigh what merit our causes had.
Putting our faith in being strong —
Above the level of good and bad —
For us, we battled and burned and killed
Because evolving Nature willed,
And it was our pride and boast to be
The instruments of Destiny.
There was a stately drama writ
By the hand that peopled the earth and air
And set the stars in the infinite
And made night gorgeous and morning fair,
And all that had sense to reason knew
That bloody drama must be gone through.
Some sat and watched how the action veered —
Waited, profited, trembled, cheered —
We saw not clearly nor understood,
But yielding ourselves to the masterhand,
Each in his part as best he could,
We played it through as the author planned.
A few random poems:
- Robert Burns: Love For Love:
- Владимир Корнилов – Нищий
- Funny Networking Poem and Do’s and Don’ts
- A Garden-Seat At Home by William Lisle Bowles
- Autumn Leaves by Thomas J Camp
- In Me, Past, Present, Future meet by Siegfried Sassoon
- Shit List; Or, Omnium-gatherum Of Diversity Into Unity poem – A. R. Ammons poems | Poetry Monster
- Галина Гампер – Здесь сегодня все пошло с молотка
- The Motherless Child by William Barnes
- The Pleasures Of Friendship by Stevie Smith
- Владимир Маяковский – Четвертый вывоз
- When You Go Away by W. S. Merwin
- A Song In Passing by Yvor Winters
- Ольга Берггольц – Из “Писем с дороги”
- To Mr. Thomas Southern, on his Birth-Day poem – Alexander Pope
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
- Robert Burns: Address To The Woodlark:
- Robert Burns: Does Haughty Gaul Invasion Threat?:
- Robert Burns: Had I The Wyte? She Bade Me:
- Robert Burns: The Lass That Made The Bed To Me :
- Robert Burns: The Cooper O’ Cuddy:
- Robert Burns: The Cardin O’t, The Spinnin O’t:
- Robert Burns: Inscription For An Altar Of Independence: At Kerroughtree, the Seat of Mr. Heron.
- Robert Burns: Ballads on Mr. Heron’s Election, 1795: Ballad Third – John Bushby’s Lamentation.
- Robert Burns: Ballads on Mr. Heron’s Election, 1795: Second-Election Day
- Robert Burns: :
- Robert Burns: Ballads on Mr. Heron’s Election, 1795: Ballad First
- Robert Burns: O Wat Ye Wha’s In Yon Town:
- Robert Burns: I’ll Aye Ca’ In By Yon Town:
- Robert Burns: Her Answer:
- Robert Burns: O Let Me In Thes Ae Night:
- Robert Burns: The Lass O’ Ecclefechan:
- Robert Burns: O Steer Her Up An’ Haud Her Gaun:
- Robert Burns: Gude Ale Keeps The Heart Aboon:
- Robert Burns: O Aye My Wife She Dang Me:
- Robert Burns: Wee Willie Gray:
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.