Sonnet 11 Alan Seeger 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...
The Need to Love Alan Seeger 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...
El Extraviado Alan Seeger Over the radiant ridges borne out on the offshore wind, I have sailed as a butterfly sails whose priming wings unfurled Leave the familiar gardens and visited fields behind To follow a cloud in the east rose-flushed on the rim of...
Juvenilia, An Ode to Natural Beauty Alan Seeger 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...
Sonnet XVI: Who Shall Invoke Her Alan Seeger 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...
Vivien Alan Seeger 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...
After an Epigram of Clement Marot Alan Seeger The lad I was I longer now Nor am nor shall be evermore. Spring’s lovely blossoms from my brow Have shed their petals on the floor. Thou, Love, hast been my lord, thy shrine Above all gods’...
The Aisne Alan Seeger 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,...
Sonnet III Alan Seeger 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...
Sonnet VI Alan Seeger 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...
