A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916)
The need to love that all the stars obey
Entered my heart and banished all beside.
Bare were the gardens where I used to stray;
Faded the flowers that one time satisfied.
Before the beauty of the west on fire,
The moonlit hills from cloister-casements viewed
Cloud-like arose the image of desire,
And cast out peace and maddened solitude.
I sought the City and the hopes it held:
With smoke and brooding vapors intercurled,
As the thick roofs and walls close-paralleled
Shut out the fair horizons of the world—
A truant from the fields and rustic joy,
In my changed thought that image even so
Shut out the gods I worshipped as a boy
And all the pure delights I used to know.
Often the veil has trembled at some tide
Of lovely reminiscence and revealed
How much of beauty Nature holds beside
Sweet lips that sacrifice and arms that yield:
Clouds, window-framed, beyond the huddled eaves
When summer cumulates their golden chains,
Or from the parks the smell of burning leaves,
Fragrant of childhood in the country lanes,
An organ-grinder’s melancholy tune
In rainy streets, or from an attic sill
The blue skies of a windy afternoon
Where our kites climbed once from some grassy hill:
And my soul once more would be wrapped entire
In the pure peace and blessing of those years.
Before the fierce infection of Desire
Had ravaged all the flesh. Through starting tears
Shone that lost Paradise; but, if it did,
Again ere long the prison-shades would fall
That Youth condemns itself to walk amid,
So narrow, but so beautiful withal.
And I have followed Fame with less devotion,
And kept no real ambition but to see
Rise from the foam of Nature’s sunlit ocean
My dream of palpable divinity;
And aught the world contends for to mine eye
Seemed not so real a meaning of success
As only once to clasp before I die
My vision of embodied happiness.
A few random poems:
- Quarrel In Old Age by William Butler Yeats
- Sonnet 132: Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me by William Shakespeare
- Winter Landscape, With Rooks by Sylvia Plath
- English Poetry. Thomas Moore. From “The Odes of Anacreon”. Ode 66. Томас Мур.
- Robert Burns: Will Ye Go To The Indies, My Mary?:
- The Prisoners Of The Little Box by Vasko Popa
- Listening To Rwanda Genocide by Satish Verma
- The Princess: A Medley: As thro’ the land poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Life a chess game by Tanisha Avarsekar
- The Cloud by Sara Teasdale
- Adolescence I by Rita Dove
- TOELESS JOURNEY by Satish Verma
- The Monastery Of Life by Vaishnavi Prakash
- A Practical Young Woman poem – Irwin Russell “,
- Sonnet 68: Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn by William Shakespeare
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
- Trendy Madness In Fashion Meccas
- 8 Creative Tips for Clickable Video Ads
- How Do You Know when Someone is in Love with You?
- Meditation For Writing – Three Tips to Improve your Writing with Creative Meditation
- 11 Amazing Autistic Famous People
- Be Healthier, Live Longer By Being Creative!
- How To Publish Your Writing With Duotrope
- How to Survive After Losing a Loved One
- Interior Design Institutes in Dehradun
- Unrequited Love – Why Can’t You Love Me Back?
- Transsexual Children Confused by Body Image
- Youths Can Raise Funds, Fight Drug Abuse Through Education
- Passion For Light
- Love and Burgers: Compatible or Incompatible Relationship?
- Sex – Hinduism Shows the Scientific Way!
- Book Review – The Elements of Style by Strunk and White
- Poetic Vision – Heaven’s Door
- Can Sri Lankan Women Be Creative? Review From A Third World Country!
- Yoga and Love – Part I
- How Do You Produce Original Articles?
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.