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Sonnet IV

By Alan Seeger

Topics: classic

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 the heart-throbs of a sentient frame:     Each night the whistles in the bay, the same     Whirl of incessant wheels and clanging cars:     For smoke that half obscured, the circling stars     Burnt like his youth with but a sickly flame.     Up to his attic came the city cries -     The throes with which her iron sinews heave -     And yet forever behind prison doors     Welled in his heart and trembled in his eyes     The light that hangs on desert hills at eve     And tints the sea on solitary shores. . . .

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"Up at his attic sill the South wind came..."

"Sonnet IV" is a quintessential example of Alan Seeger's signature style... ### Why We Love This Line At Linespedia, we believe that poetry is the ultimate sanctuary for the soul...

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Author:Alan Seeger

"Up at his attic sill the South wind came..." by Alan Seeger

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"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"

Alan Seeger

About Alan Seeger

Alan Seeger (1888–1916) was an American poet who fought in the French Foreign Legion during World War I. His poem "I Have a Rendezvous with Death" is one of the most famous war poems, and he was killed in action at the Battle of the Somme.

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