Alan Seeger

"I loved illustrious cities and the crowds     That eddy through their incandescent nights.     I loved remote horizons with far clouds     Gird"

"I fancied, while you stood conversing there,     Superb, in every attitude a queen,     Her ermine thus Boadicea bare,     So moved amid the mu"

"I     First, London, for its myriads; for its height,     Manhattan heaped in towering stalagmite;     But Paris for the smoothness of the"

"Oft as by chance, a little while apart     The pall of empty, loveless hours withdrawn,     Sweet Beauty, opening on the impoverished heart,"

"All that's not love is the dearth of my days,      The leaves of the volume with rubric unwrit,     The temple in times without prayer, without"

"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 rendez"

"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"

"In that fair capital where Pleasure, crowned Amidst her myriad courtiers, riots and rules, I too have been a suitor. Radiant eyes Were my life's warmt"

"First, London, for its myriads; for its height, Manhattan heaped in towering stalagmite; But Paris for the smoothness of the paths That lead the heart"

"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"

"I know a village in a far-off land Where from a sunny, mountain-girdled plain With tinted walls a space on either hand And fed by many an olive-darken"

"There was a youth around whose early way     White angels hung in converse and sweet choir,     Teaching in summer clouds his thought to stray,"

"For there were nights . . . my love to him whose brow     Has glistened with the spoils of nights like those,     Home turning as a conqueror tu"

"There is a power whose inspiration fills     Nature's fair fabric, sun- and star-inwrought,     Like airy dew ere any drop distils,     Like pe"

"A splendor, flamelike, born to be pursued,     With palms extent for amorous charity     And eyes incensed with love for all they see,     A"

"I who, conceived beneath another star,     Had been a prince and played with life, instead     Have been its slave, an outcast exiled far     F"

"Broceliande! in the perilous beauty of silence and menacing shade,     Thou art set on the shores of the sea down the haze      of horizons untr"

"Thy petals yet are closely curled,      Rose of the world,     Around their scented, golden core;     Nor yet has Summer purpled o'er     Thy"

"There was a time when I thought much of Fame,     And laid the golden edifice to be     That in the clear light of eternity     Should fitly ho"

"Though thou art now a ruin bare and cold,     Thou wert sometime the garden of a king.     The birds have sought a lovelier place to sing."

"You have the grit and the guts, I know;     You are ready to answer blow for blow     You are virile, combative, stubborn, hard,     But your"

"Florence, rejoice! For thou o'er land and sea     So spread'st thy pinions that the fame of thee     Hath reached no less into the depths of Hel"

"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 cl"

"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,"

"I have gone sometimes by the gates of Death     And stood beside the cavern through whose doors     Enter the voyagers into the unseen.     Fr"

"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."

"There was a boy - not above childish fears -     With steps that faltered now and straining ears,     Timid, irresolute, yet dauntless still,"

"Flaked, drifting clouds hide not the full moon's rays     More than her beautiful bright limbs were hid     By the light veils they burned and b"

"I stood beside his sepulchre whose fame,     Hurled over Europe once on bolt and blast,     Now glows far off as storm-clouds overpast     Glow"

"As one of some fat tillage dispossessed,     Weighing the yield of these four faded years,     If any ask what fruit seems loveliest,     What"

"Down the strait vistas where a city street     Fades in pale dust and vaporous distances,     Stained with far fumes the light grows less and le"

"O happiness, I know not what far seas,      Blue hills and deep, thy sunny realms surround,     That thus in Music's wistful harmonies      And"

"At dusk, when lowlands where dark waters glide     Robe in gray mist, and through the greening hills     The hoot-owl calls his mate, and whippo"

"Over the radiant ridges borne out on the offshore wind,      I have sailed as a butterfly sails whose priming wings unfurled     Leave the famil"

"My spirit only lived to look on Beauty's face,      As only when they clasp the arms seem served aright;     As in their flesh inheres the impul"

"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."

"* A paraphrase of Petrarca, 'Quando fra l'altre donne . . .'     When among creatures fair of countenance     Love comes enformed in such prou"

"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 t"

"A cloud has lowered that shall not soon pass o'er.     The world takes sides: whether for impious aims     With Tyranny whose bloody toll enflam"

"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"

"We first saw fire on the tragic slopes      Where the flood-tide of France's early gain,     Big with wrecked promise and abandoned hopes,"

"To see the clouds his spirit yearned toward so     Over new mountains piled and unploughed waves,     Back of old-storied spires and architraves"

"The rooks aclamor when one enters here     Startle the empty towers far overhead;     Through gaping walls the summer fields appear,     Green,"

"I have a rendezvous with Death     At some disputed barricade,     When Spring comes back with rustling shade     And apple-blossoms fill the"

"What is Success? Out of the endless ore     Of deep desire to coin the utmost gold     Of passionate memory; to have lived so well     That the"

"So when the verdure of his life was shed,     With all the grace of ripened manlihead,     And on his locks, but now so lovable,     Old age li"

"Purged, with the life they left, of all     That makes life paltry and mean and small,     In their new dedication charged     With something"

"In Lyonesse was beauty enough, men say:     Long Summer loaded the orchards to excess,     And fertile lowlands lengthening far away,"

"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;      F"

"Above the ruin of God's holy place,     Where man-forsaken lay the bleeding rood,     Whose hands, when men had craved substantial food,     Ga"

"I     Do you remember once, in Paris of glad faces,      The night we wandered off under the third moon's rays     And, leaving far behind"

"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"

"In that fair capital where Pleasure, crowned     Amidst her myriad courtiers, riots and rules,     I too have been a suitor. Radiant eyes     W"

"A tide of beauty with returning May     Floods the fair city; from warm pavements fume     Odors endeared; down avenues in bloom     The chestn"

"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 wo"

"I know a village in a far-off land      Where from a sunny, mountain-girdled plain     With tinted walls a space on either hand      And fed by"

"Stretched on a sunny bank he lay at rest,     Ferns at his elbow, lilies round his knees,     With sweet flesh patterned where the cool turf pre"

"A hilltop sought by every soothing breeze     That loves the melody of murmuring boughs,     Cool shades, green acreage, and antique house"

"Amid the florid multitude her face     Was like the full moon seen behind the lace     Of orchard boughs where clouded blossoms part     When S"

"I care not that one listen if he lives     For aught but life's romance, nor puts above     All life's necessities the need to love,     Nor co"