[ { "title": "I Have A Rendezvous With Death", "author": "Alan Seeger", "lines": [ "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 rendezvous with Death", "When Spring brings back blue days and fair.", "", "It may be he shall take my hand", "And lead me into his dark land", "And close my eyes and quench my breath—", "It may be I shall pass him still.", "I have a rendezvous with Death", "On some scarred slope of battered hill", "When Spring comes round again this year", "And the first meadow-flowers appear.", "", "God knows 'twere better to be deep", "Pillowed in silk and scented down,", "Where Love throbs out in blissful sleep,", "Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,", "Where hushed awakenings are dear...", "But I've a rendezvous with Death", "At midnight in some flaming town,", "When Spring trips north again this year,", "And I to my pledged word am true,", "I shall not fail that rendezvous." ], "linecount": "24" }, { "title": "Ode in Memory of the American Volunteers Fallen for France", "author": "Alan Seeger", "lines": [ "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 by fifty years made gray --", "Their graves in every town are garlanded,", "That pious tribute should be given too", "To our intrepid few", "Obscurely fallen here beyond the seas.", "Those to preserve their country's greatness died;", "But by the death of these", "Something that we can look upon with pride", "Has been achieved, nor wholly unreplied", "Can sneerers triumph in the charge they make", "That from a war where Freedom was at stake", "America withheld and, daunted, stood aside.", "", "II", "", "Be they remembered here with each reviving spring,", "Not only that in May, when life is loveliest,", "Around Neuville-Saint-Vaast and the disputed crest", "Of Vimy, they, superb, unfaltering,", "In that fine onslaught that no fire could halt,", "Parted impetuous to their first assault;", "But that they brought fresh hearts and springlike too", "To that high mission, and 'tis meet to strew", "With twigs of lilac and spring's earliest rose", "The cenotaph of those", "Who in the cause that history most endears", "Fell in the sunny morn and flower of their young years.", "", "III", "", "et sought they neither recompense nor praise,", "Nor to be mentioned in another breath", "Than their blue coated comrades whose great days", "It was their pride to share -- ay, share even to the death!", "Nay, rather, France, to you they rendered thanks", "(Seeing they came for honor, not for gain),", "Who, opening to them your glorious ranks,", "Gave them that grand occasion to excel,", "That chance to live the life most free from stain", "And that rare privilege of dying well.", "", "IV", "", "O friends! I know not since that war began", "From which no people nobly stands aloof", "If in all moments we have given proof", "Of virtues that were thought American.", "I know not if in all things done and said", "All has been well and good,", "Or if each one of us can hold his head", "As proudly as he should,", "Or, from the pattern of those mighty dead", "Whose shades our country venerates to-day,", "", "If we've not somewhat fallen and somewhat gone astray.", "But you to whom our land's good name is dear,", "If there be any here", "Who wonder if her manhood be decreased,", "Relaxed its sinews and its blood less red", "Than that at Shiloh and Antietam shed,", "Be proud of these, have joy in this at least,", "And cry: \"Now heaven be praised", "That in that hour that most imperilled her,", "Menaced her liberty who foremost raised", "Europe's bright flag of freedom, some there were", "Who, not unmindful of the antique debt,", "Came back the generous path of Lafayette;", "And when of a most formidable foe", "She checked each onset, arduous to stem --", "Foiled and frustrated them --", "On those red fields where blow with furious blow", "Was countered, whether the gigantic fray", "Rolled by the Meuse or at the Bois Sabot,", "Accents of ours were in the fierce melee;", "And on those furthest rims of hallowed ground", "Where the forlorn, the gallant charge expires,", "When the slain bugler has long ceased to sound,", "And on the tangled wires", "The last wild rally staggers, crumbles, stops,", "Withered beneath the shrapnel's iron showers: --", "Now heaven be thanked, we gave a few brave drops;", "Now heaven be thanked, a few brave drops were ours.\"", "", "V", "", "There, holding still, in frozen steadfastness,", "Their bayonets toward the beckoning frontiers,", "They lie -- our comrades -- lie among their peers,", "Clad in the glory of fallen warriors,", "Grim clusters under thorny trellises,", "Dry, furthest foam upon disastrous shores,", "Leaves that made last year beautiful, still strewn", "Even as they fell, unchanged, beneath the changing moon;", "And earth in her divine indifference", "Rolls on, and many paltry things and mean", "Prate to be heard and caper to be seen.", "But they are silent, calm; their eloquence", "Is that incomparable attitude;", "No human presences their witness are,", "But summer clouds and sunset crimson-hued,", "And showers and night winds and the northern star.", "Nay, even our salutations seem profane,", "Opposed to their Elysian quietude;", "Our salutations calling from afar,", "From our ignobler plane", "And undistinction of our lesser parts:", "Hail, brothers, and farewell; you are twice blest, brave hearts.", "Double your glory is who perished thus,", "For you have died for France and vindicated us." ], "linecount": "104" }, { "title": "Juvenilia, An Ode to Natural Beauty", "author": "Alan Seeger", "lines": [ "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 pulse and principle and soul.", "Now when, the drift of old desire renewing,", "Warm tides flow northward over valley and field,", "When half-forgotten sound and scent are wooing", "From their deep-chambered recesses long sealed", "Such memories as breathe once more", "Of childhood and the happy hues it wore,", "Now, with a fervor that has never been", "In years gone by, it stirs me to respond, --", "Not as a force whose fountains are within", "The faculties of the percipient mind,", "Subject with them to darkness and decay,", "But something absolute, something beyond,", "Oft met like tender orbs that seem to peer", "From pale horizons, luminous behind", "Some fringe of tinted cloud at close of day;", "And in this flood of the reviving year,", "When to the loiterer by sylvan streams,", "Deep in those cares that make Youth loveliest,", "Nature in every common aspect seems", "To comment on the burden in his breast --", "The joys he covets and the dreams he dreams --", "One then with all beneath the radiant skies", "That laughs with him or sighs,", "It courses through the lilac-scented air,", "A blessing on the fields, a wonder everywhere.", "", "", "Spirit of Beauty, whose sweet impulses,", "Flung like the rose of dawn across the sea,", "Alone can flush the exalted consciousness", "With shafts of sensible divinity --", "Light of the World, essential loveliness:", "Him whom the Muse hath made thy votary", "Not from her paths and gentle precepture", "Shall vulgar ends engage, nor break the spell", "That taught him first to feel thy secret charms", "And o'er the earth, obedient to their lure,", "Their sweet surprise and endless miracle,", "To follow ever with insatiate arms.", "On summer afternoons,", "When from the blue horizon to the shore,", "Casting faint silver pathways like the moon's", "Across the Ocean's glassy, mottled floor,", "Far clouds uprear their gleaming battlements", "Drawn to the crest of some bleak eminence,", "When autumn twilight fades on the sere hill", "And autumn winds are still;", "To watch the East for some emerging sign,", "Wintry Capella or the Pleiades", "Or that great huntsman with the golden gear;", "Ravished in hours like these", "Before thy universal shrine", "To feel the invoked presence hovering near,", "He stands enthusiastic. Star-lit hours", "Spent on the roads of wandering solitude", "Have set their sober impress on his brow,", "And he, with harmonies of wind and wood", "And torrent and the tread of mountain showers,", "Has mingled many a dedicative vow", "That holds him, till thy last delight be known,", "Bound in thy service and in thine alone.", "", "", "I, too, among the visionary throng", "Who choose to follow where thy pathway leads,", "Have sold my patrimony for a song,", "And donned the simple, lowly pilgrim's weeds.", "From that first image of beloved walls,", "Deep-bowered in umbrage of ancestral trees,", "Where earliest thy sweet enchantment falls,", "Tingeing a child's fantastic reveries", "With radiance so fair it seems to be", "Of heavens just lost the lingering evidence", "From that first dawn of roseate infancy,", "So long beneath thy tender influence", "My breast has thrilled. As oft for one brief second", "The veil through which those infinite offers beckoned", "Has seemed to tremble, letting through", "Some swift intolerable view", "Of vistas past the sense of mortal seeing,", "So oft, as one whose stricken eyes might see", "In ferny dells the rustic deity,", "I stood, like him, possessed, and all my being,", "Flooded an instant with unwonted light,", "Quivered with cosmic passion; whether then", "On woody pass or glistening mountain-height", "I walked in fellowship with winds and clouds,", "Whether in cities and the throngs of men,", "A curious saunterer through friendly crowds,", "Enamored of the glance in passing eyes,", "Unuttered salutations, mute replies, --", "In every character where light of thine", "Has shed on earthly things the hue of things divine", "I sought eternal Loveliness, and seeking,", "If ever transport crossed my brow bespeaking", "Such fire as a prophetic heart might feel", "Where simple worship blends in fervent zeal,", "It was the faith that only love of thee", "Needed in human hearts for Earth to see", "Surpassed the vision poets have held dear", "Of joy diffused in most communion here;", "That whomsoe'er thy visitations warmed,", "Lover of thee in all thy rays informed,", "Needed no difficulter discipline", "To seek his right to happiness within", "Than, sensible of Nature's loveliness,", "To yield him to the generous impulses", "By such a sentiment evoked. The thought,", "Bright Spirit, whose illuminings I sought,", "That thou unto thy worshipper might be", "An all-sufficient law, abode with me,", "Importing something more than unsubstantial dreams", "To vigils by lone shores and walks by murmuring streams.", "", "", "Youth's flowers like childhood's fade and are forgot.", "Fame twines a tardy crown of yellowing leaves.", "How swift were disillusion, were it not", "That thou art steadfast where all else deceives!", "Solace and Inspiration, Power divine", "That by some mystic sympathy of thine,", "When least it waits and most hath need of thee,", "Can startle the dull spirit suddenly", "With grandeur welled from unsuspected springs, --", "Long as the light of fulgent evenings,", "When from warm showers the pearly shades disband", "And sunset opens o'er the humid land,", "Shows thy veiled immanence in orient skies, --", "Long as pale mist and opalescent dyes", "Hung on far isle or vanishing mountain-crest,", "Fields of remote enchantment can suggest", "So sweet to wander in it matters nought,", "They hold no place but in impassioned thought,", "Long as one draught from a clear sky may be", "A scented luxury;", "Be thou my worship, thou my sole desire,", "Thy paths my pilgrimage, my sense a lyre", "Aeolian for thine every breath to stir;", "Oft when her full-blown periods recur,", "To see the birth of day's transparent moon", "Far from cramped walls may fading afternoon", "Find me expectant on some rising lawn;", "Often depressed in dewy grass at dawn,", "Me, from sweet slumber underneath green boughs,", "Ere the stars flee may forest matins rouse,", "Afoot when the great sun in amber floods", "Pours horizontal through the steaming woods", "And windless fumes from early chimneys start", "And many a cock-crow cheers the traveller's heart", "Eager for aught the coming day afford", "In hills untopped and valleys unexplored.", "Give me the white road into the world's ends,", "Lover of roadside hazard, roadside friends,", "Loiterer oft by upland farms to gaze", "On ample prospects, lost in glimmering haze", "At noon, or where down odorous dales twilit,", "Filled with low thundering of the mountain stream,", "Over the plain where blue seas border it", "The torrid coast-towns gleam.", "", "", "I have fared too far to turn back now; my breast", "Burns with the lust for splendors unrevealed,", "Stars of midsummer, clouds out of the west,", "Pallid horizons, winds that valley and field", "Laden with joy, be ye my refuge still!", "What though distress and poverty assail!", "Though other voices chide, yours never will.", "The grace of a blue sky can never fail.", "Powers that my childhood with a spell so sweet,", "My youth with visions of such glory nursed,", "Ye have beheld, nor ever seen my feet", "On any venture set, but 'twas the thirst", "For Beauty willed them, yea, whatever be", "The faults I wanted wings to rise above;", "I am cheered yet to think how steadfastly", "I have been loyal to the love of Love!" ], "linecount": "175" }, { "title": "The Deserted Garden", "author": "Alan Seeger", "lines": [ "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-darkened lane", "The high-road mounts, and thence a silver band", "Through vineyard slopes above and rolling grain,", "Winds off to that dim corner of the skies", "Where behind sunset hills a stately city lies.", "", "Here, among trees whose overhanging shade", "Strews petals on the little droves below,", "Pattering townward in the morning weighed", "With greens from many an upland garden-row,", "Runs an old wall; long centuries have frayed", "Its scalloped edge, and passers to and fro", "Heard never from beyond its crumbling height", "Sweet laughter ring at noon or plaintive song at night.", "", "But here where little lizards bask and blink", "The tendrils of the trumpet-vine have run,", "At whose red bells the humming bird to drink", "Stops oft before his garden feast is done;", "And rose-geraniums, with that tender pink", "That cloud-banks borrow from the setting sun,", "Have covered part of this old wall, entwined", "With fair plumbago, blue as evening heavens behind.", "", "And crowning other parts the wild white rose", "Rivals the honey-suckle with the bees.", "Above the old abandoned orchard shows", "And all within beneath the dense-set trees,", "Tall and luxuriant the rank grass grows,", "That settled in its wavy depth one sees", "Grass melt in leaves, the mossy trunks between,", "Down fading avenues of implicated green;", "", "Wherein no lack of flowers the verdurous night", "With stars and pearly nebula o'erlay;", "Azalea-boughs half rosy and half white", "Shine through the green and clustering apple-spray,", "Such as the fairy-queen before her knight", "Waved in old story, luring him away", "Where round lost isles Hesperian billows break", "Or towers loom up beneath the clear, translucent lake;", "", "And under the deep grass blue hare-bells hide,", "And myrtle plots with dew-fall ever wet,", "Gay tiger-lilies flammulate and pied,", "Sometime on pathway borders neatly set,", "Now blossom through the brake on either side,", "Where heliotrope and weedy mignonette,", "With vines in bloom and flower-bearing trees,", "Mingle their incense all to swell the perfumed breeze,", "", "That sprung like Hermes from his natal cave", "In some blue rampart of the curving West,", "Comes up the valleys where green cornfields wave,", "Ravels the cloud about the mountain crest,", "Breathes on the lake till gentle ripples pave", "Its placid floor; at length a long-loved guest,", "He steals across this plot of pleasant ground,", "Waking the vocal leaves to a sweet vernal sound.", "", "Here many a day right gladly have I sped,", "Content amid the wavy plumes to lie,", "And through the woven branches overhead", "Watch the white, ever-wandering clouds go by,", "And soaring birds make their dissolving bed", "Far in the azure depths of summer sky,", "Or nearer that small huntsman of the air,", "The fly-catcher, dart nimbly from his leafy lair;", "", "Pillowed at case to hear the merry tune", "Of mating warblers in the boughs above", "And shrill cicadas whom the hottest noon", "Keeps not from drowsy song; the mourning dove", "Pours down the murmuring grove his plaintive croon", "That like the voice of visionary love", "Oft have I risen to seek through this green maze", "(Even as my feet thread now the great world's garden-ways);", "", "And, parting tangled bushes as I passed", "Down beechen allies beautiful and dim,", "Perhaps by some deep-shaded pool at last", "My feet would pause, where goldfish poise and swim,", "And snowy callas' velvet cups are massed", "Around the mossy, fern-encircled brim.", "Here, then, that magic summoning would cease,", "Or sound far off again among the orchard trees.", "", "And here where the blanched lilies of the vale", "And violets and yellow star-flowers teem,", "And pink and purple hyacinths exhale", "Their heavy fume, once more to drowse and dream", "My head would sink, from many an olden tale", "Drawing imagination's fervid theme,", "Or haply peopling this enchanting spot", "Only with fair creations of fantastic thought.", "", "For oft I think, in years long since gone by,", "That gentle hearts dwelt here and gentle hands", "Stored all this bowery bliss to beautify", "The paradise of some unsung romance;", "Here, safe from all except the loved one's eye,", "'Tis sweet to think white limbs were wont to glance,", "Well pleased to wanton like the flowers and share", "Their simple loveliness with the enamored air.", "", "Thrice dear to them whose votive fingers decked", "The altars of First Love were these green ways,", "These lawns and verdurous brakes forever flecked", "With the warm sunshine of midsummer days;", "Oft where the long straight allies intersect", "And marble seats surround the open space,", "Where a tiled pool and sculptured fountain stand,", "Hath Evening found them seated, silent, hand in hand.", "", "When twilight deepened, in the gathering shade", "Beneath that old titanic cypress row,", "Whose sombre vault and towering colonnade", "Dwarfed the enfolded forms that moved below,", "Oft with close steps these happy lovers strayed,", "Till down its darkening aisle the sunset glow", "Grew less and patterning the garden floor", "Faint flakes of filtering moonlight mantled more and more.", "", "And the strange tempest that a touch imparts", "Through the mid fibre of the molten frame,", "When the sweet flesh in early youth asserts", "Its heyday verve and little hints enflame,", "Disturbed them as they walked; from their full hearts", "Welled the soft word, and many a tender name", "Strove on their lips as breast to breast they strained", "And the deep joy they drank seemed never, never drained.", "", "Love's soul that is the depth of starry skies", "Set in the splendor of one upturned face", "To beam adorably through half-closed eyes;", "Love's body where the breadth of summer days", "And all the beauty earth and air comprise", "Come to the compass of an arm's embrace,", "To burn a moment on impassioned lips", "And yield intemperate joy to quivering finger-tips,", "", "They knew; and here where morning-glories cling", "Round carven forms of carefullest artifice,", "They made a bower where every outward thing", "Should comment on the cause of their own bliss;", "With flowers of liveliest hue encompassing", "That flower that the beloved body is", "That rose that for the banquet of Love's bee", "Has budded all the æons of past eternity.", "", "But their choice seat was where the garden wall,", "Crowning a little summit, far and near,", "Looks over tufted treetops onto all", "The pleasant outer country; rising here", "From rustling foliage where cuckoos call", "On summer evenings, stands a belvedere,", "Buff-hued, of antique plaster, overrun", "With flowering vines and weatherworn by rain and sun.", "", "Still round the turrets of this antique tower", "The bougainvillea hangs a crimson crown,", "Wistaria-vines and clematis in flower,", "Wreathing the lower surface further down,", "Hide the old plaster in a very shower", "Of motley blossoms like a broidered gown.", "Outside, ascending from the garden grove,", "A crumbling stairway winds to the one room above.", "", "And whoso mounts by this dismantled stair", "Finds the old pleasure-hall, long disarrayed,", "Brick-tiled and raftered, and the walls foursquare", "Ringed all about with a twofold arcade.", "Backward dense branches intercept the glare", "Of afternoon with eucalyptus shade;", "Eastward the level valley-plains expand,", "Sweet as a queen's survey of her own Fairyland.", "", "For through that frame the ivied arches make,", "Wide tracts of sunny midland charm the eye,", "Frequent with hamlet grove, and lucent lake", "Where the blue hills' inverted contours lie;", "Far to the east where billowy mountains break", "In surf of snow against a sapphire sky,", "Huge thunderheads loom up behind the ranges,", "Changing from gold to pink as deepening sunset changes;", "", "And over plain and far sierra spread", "The fulgent rays of fading afternoon,", "Showing each utmost peak and watershed", "All clarified, each tassel and festoon", "Of floating cloud embroidered overhead,", "Like lotus-leaves on bluest waters strewn,", "Flushing with rose, while all breathes fresh and free", "In peace and amplitude and bland tranquillity.", "", "Dear were such evenings to this gentle pair;", "Love's tide that launched on with a blast too strong", "Sweeps toward the foaming reef, the hidden snare,", "Baffling with fond illusion's siren-song,", "Too faint, on idle shoals, to linger there", "Far from Youth's glowing dream, bore them along,", "With purple sail and steered by seraph hands", "To isles resplendent in the sunset of romance.", "", "And out of this old house a flowery fane,", "A bridal bower, a pearly pleasure-dome,", "They built, and furnished it with gold and grain,", "And bade all spirits of beauty hither come,", "And wingéd Love to enter with his train", "And bless their pillow, and in this his home", "Make them his priests as Hero was of yore", "In her sweet girlhood by the blue Dardanian shore.", "", "Tree-ferns, therefore, and potted palms they brought,", "Tripods and urns in rare and curious taste,", "Polychrome chests and cabinets inwrought", "With pearl and ivory etched and interlaced;", "Pendant brocades with massive braid were caught,", "And chain-slung, oriental lamps so placed", "To light the lounger on some low divan,", "Sunken in swelling down and silks from Hindustan.", "", "And there was spread, upon the ample floors,", "Work of the Levantine's laborious loom,", "Such as by Euxine or Ionian shores", "Carpets the dim seraglio's scented gloom.", "Each morn renewed, the garden's flowery stores", "Blushed in fair vases, ochre and peach-bloom,", "And little birds through wicker doors left wide", "Flew in to trill a space from the green world outside.", "", "And there was many a dainty attitude,", "Bronze and eburnean. All but disarrayed,", "Here in eternal doubt sweet Psyche stood", "Fain of the bath's delight, yet still afraid", "Lest aught in that palatial solitude", "Lurked of most menace to a helpless maid.", "Therefore forever faltering she stands,", "Nor yet the last loose fold slips rippling from her hands.", "", "Close by upon a beryl column, clad", "In the fresh flower of adolescent grace,", "They set the dear Bithynian shepherd lad,", "The nude Antinous. That gentle face,", "Forever beautiful, forever sad,", "Shows but one aspect, moon-like, to our gaze,", "Yet Fancy pictures how those lips could smile", "At revelries in Rome, and banquets on the Nile.", "", "And there were shapes of Beauty myriads more,", "Clustering their rosy bridal bed around,", "Whose scented breadth a silken fabric wore", "Broidered with peacock hues on creamiest ground,", "Fit to have graced the barge that Cydnus bore", "Or Venus' bed in her enchanted mound,", "While pillows swelled in stuffs of Orient dyes,", "All broidered with strange fruits and birds of Paradise.", "", "'Twas such a bower as Youth has visions of,", "Thither with one fair spirit to retire,", "Lie upon rose-leaves, sleep and wake with Love", "And feast on kisses to the heart's desire;", "Where by a casement opening on a grove,", "Wide to the wood-winds and the sweet birds' choir,", "A girl might stand and gaze into green boughs,", "Like Credhe at the window of her golden house.", "", "Or most like Vivien, the enchanting fay,", "Where with her friend, in the strange tower they planned,", "She lies and dreams eternity away,", "Above the treetops in Broceliande,", "Sometimes at twilight when the woods are gray", "And wolf-packs howl far out across the lande,", "Waking to love, while up behind the trees", "The large midsummer moon lifts-even so loved these.", "", "For here, their pleasure was to come and sit", "Oft when the sun sloped midway to the west,", "Watching with sweet enjoyment interknit", "The long light slant across the green earth's breast,", "And clouds upon the ranges opposite,", "Rolled up into a gleaming thundercrest,", "Topple and break and fall in purple rain,", "And mist of summer showers trail out across the plain.", "", "Whereon the shafts of ardent light, far-flung", "Across the luminous azure overhead,", "Ofttimes in arcs of transient beauty hung", "The fragmentary rainbow's green and red.", "Joy it was here to love and to be young,", "To watch the sun sink to his western bed,", "And streaming back out of their flaming core", "The vesperal aurora's glorious banners soar.", "", "Tinging each altitude of heaven in turn,", "Those fiery rays would sweep. The cumuli", "That peeped above the mountain-tops would burn", "Carmine a space; the cirrus-whorls on high,", "More delicate than sprays of maiden fern,", "Streak with pale rose the peacock-breasted sky,", "Then blanch. As water-lilies fold at night,", "Sank back into themselves those plumes of fervid light.", "", "And they would watch the first faint stars appear,", "The blue East blend with the blue hills below,", "As lovers when their shuddering bliss draws near", "Into one pulse of fluid rapture grow.", "New fragrance on the freshening atmosphere", "Would steal with evening, and the sunset glow", "Draw deeper down into the wondrous west", "Round vales of Proserpine and islands of the blest.", "", "So dusk would come and mingle lake and shore,", "The snow-peaks fade to frosty, opaline,", "To pearl the doméd clouds the mountains bore,", "Where late the sun's effulgent fire had been", "Showing as darkness deepened more and more", "The incandescent lightnings flare within,", "And Night that furls the lily in the glen", "And twines impatient arms would fall, and then---and then . . .", "", "Sometimes the peasant, coming late from town", "With empty panniers on his little drove", "Past the old lookout when the Northern Crown", "Glittered with Cygnus through the scented grove,", "Would hear soft noise of lute-strings wafted down", "And voices singing through the leaves above", "Those songs that well from the warm heart that woos", "At balconies in Merida or Vera Cruz.", "", "And he would pause under the garden wall,", "Caught in the spell of that voluptuous strain,", "With all the sultry South in it, and all", "Its importunity of love and pain;", "And he would wait till the last passionate fall", "Died on the night, and all was still again.", "Then to his upland village wander home,", "Marvelling whence that flood of elfin song might come.", "", "O lyre that Love's white holy hands caress,", "Youth, from thy bosom welled their passionate lays", "Sweet opportunity for happiness", "So brief, so passing beautiful---O days,", "When to the heart's divine indulgences", "All earth in smiling ministration pays", "Thine was the source whose plenitude, past over,", "What prize shall rest to pluck, what secret to discover!", "", "The wake of color that follows her when May", "Walks on the hills loose-haired and daisy-crowned,", "The deep horizons of a summer's day,", "Fair cities, and the pleasures that abound", "Where music calls, and crowds in bright array", "Gather by night to find and to be found;", "What were these worth or all delightful things", "Without thine eyes to read their true interpretings!", "", "For thee the mountains open glorious gates,", "To thee white arms put out from orient skies,", "Earth, like a jewelled bride for one she waits,", "Decks but to be delicious in thine eyes,", "Thou guest of honor for one day, whose fêtes", "Eternity has travailed to devise;", "Ah, grace them well in the brief hour they last!", "Another's turn prepares, another follows fast.", "", "Yet not without one fond memorial", "Let my sun set who found the world so fair!", "Frail verse, when Time the singer's coronal", "Has rent, and stripped the rose-leaves from his hair,", "Be thou my tablet on the temple wall!", "Among the pious testimonials there,", "Witness how sweetly on my heart as well", "The miracles of dawn and starry evening fell!", "", "Speak of one then who had the lust to feel,", "And, from the hues that far horizons take,", "And cloud and sunset, drank the wild appeal,", "Too deep to live for aught but life's sweet sake,", "Whose only motive was the will to kneel", "Where Beauty's purest benediction spake,", "Who only coveted what grove and field", "And sunshine and green Earth and tender arms could yield---", "", "A nympholept, through pleasant days and drear", "Seeking his faultless adolescent dream,", "A pilgrim down the paths that disappear", "In mist and rainbows on the world's extreme,", "A helpless voyager who all too near", "The mouth of Life's fair flower-bordered stream,", "Clutched at Love's single respite in his need", "More than the drowning swimmer clutches at a reed---", "", "That coming one whose feet in other days", "Shall bleed like mine for ever having, more", "Than any purpose, felt the need to praise", "And seek the angelic image to adore,", "In love with Love, its wonderful, sweet ways", "Counting what most makes life worth living for,", "That so some relic may be his to see", "How I loved these things too and they were dear to me.", "", "I sometimes think a conscious happiness", "Mantles through all the rose's sentient vine", "When summer winds with myriad calyces", "Of bloom its clambering height incarnadine;", "I sometimes think that cleaving lips, no less,", "And limbs that crowned desires at length entwine", "Are nerves through which that being drinks delight,", "Whose frame is the green Earth robed round with day and night.", "", "And such were theirs: the traveller without,", "Pausing at night under the orchard trees,", "Wondered and crossed himself in holy doubt,", "For through their song and in the murmuring breeze", "It seemed angelic choirs were all about", "Mingling in universal harmonies,", "As though, responsive to the chords they woke,", "All Nature into sweet epithalamium broke.", "", "And still they think a spirit haunts the place:", "'Tis said, when Night has drawn her jewelled pall", "And through the branches twinkling fireflies trace", "Their mimic constellations, if it fall", "That one should see the moon rise through the lace", "Of blossomy boughs above the garden wall,", "That surely would he take great ill thereof", "And famish in a fit of unexpressive love.", "", "But this I know not, for what time the wain", "Was loosened and the lily's petal furled,", "Then I would rise, climb the old wall again,", "And pausing look forth on the sundown world,", "Scan the wide reaches of the wondrous plain,", "The hamlet sites where settling smoke lay curled,", "The poplar-bordered roads, and far away", "Fair snowpeaks colored with the sun's last ray.", "", "Waves of faint sound would pulsate from afar", "Faint song and preludes of the summer night;", "Deep in the cloudless west the evening star", "Hung 'twixt the orange and the emerald light;", "From the dark vale where shades crepuscular", "Dimmed the old grove-girt belfry glimmering white,", "Throbbing, as gentlest breezes rose or fell,", "Came the sweet invocation of the evening bell." ], "linecount": "400" }, { "title": "Paris", "author": "Alan Seeger", "lines": [ "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 unto the heart's delight. . . .", "", "", "Fair loiterer on the threshold of those days", "When there's no lovelier prize the world displays", "Than, having beauty and your twenty years,", "You have the means to conquer and the ways,", "", "", "And coming where the crossroads separate", "And down each vista glories and wonders wait,", "Crowning each path with pinnacles so fair", "You know not which to choose, and hesitate --", "", "", "Oh, go to Paris. . . . In the midday gloom", "Of some old quarter take a little room", "That looks off over Paris and its towers", "From Saint Gervais round to the Emperor's Tomb, --", "", "", "So high that you can hear a mating dove", "Croon down the chimney from the roof above,", "See Notre Dame and know how sweet it is", "To wake between Our Lady and our love.", "", "", "And have a little balcony to bring", "Fair plants to fill with verdure and blossoming,", "That sparrows seek, to feed from pretty hands,", "And swallows circle over in the Spring.", "", "", "There of an evening you shall sit at ease", "In the sweet month of flowering chestnut-trees,", "There with your little darling in your arms,", "Your pretty dark-eyed Manon or Louise.", "", "", "And looking out over the domes and towers", "That chime the fleeting quarters and the hours,", "While the bright clouds banked eastward back of them", "Blush in the sunset, pink as hawthorn flowers,", "", "", "You cannot fail to think, as I have done,", "Some of life's ends attained, so you be one", "Who measures life's attainment by the hours", "That Joy has rescued from oblivion.", "", "II", "", "", "Come out into the evening streets. The green light lessens in the west.", "The city laughs and liveliest her fervid pulse of pleasure beats.", "", "", "The belfry on Saint Severin strikes eight across the smoking eaves:", "Come out under the lights and leaves", "to the Reine Blanche on Saint Germain. . . .", "", "", "Now crowded diners fill the floor of brasserie and restaurant.", "Shrill voices cry \"L'Intransigeant,\" and corners echo \"Paris-Sport.\"", "", "", "Where rows of tables from the street are screened with shoots of box and bay,", "The ragged minstrels sing and play and gather sous from those that eat.", "", "", "And old men stand with menu-cards, inviting passers-by to dine", "On the bright terraces that line the Latin Quarter boulevards. . . .", "", "", "But, having drunk and eaten well, 'tis pleasant then to stroll along", "And mingle with the merry throng that promenades on Saint Michel.", "", "", "Here saunter types of every sort. The shoddy jostle with the chic:", "Turk and Roumanian and Greek; student and officer and sport;", "", "", "Slavs with their peasant, Christ-like heads,", "and courtezans like powdered moths,", "And peddlers from Algiers, with cloths", "bright-hued and stitched with golden threads;", "", "", "And painters with big, serious eyes go rapt in dreams, fantastic shapes", "In corduroys and Spanish capes and locks uncut and flowing ties;", "", "", "And lovers wander two by two, oblivious among the press,", "And making one of them no less, all lovers shall be dear to you:", "", "", "All laughing lips you move among, all happy hearts that, knowing what", "Makes life worth while, have wasted not the sweet reprieve of being young.", "", "", "\"Comment ca va!\" \"Mon vieux!\" \"Mon cher!\"", "Friends greet and banter as they pass.", "'Tis sweet to see among the mass comrades and lovers everywhere,", "", "", "A law that's sane, a Love that's free, and men of every birth and blood", "Allied in one great brotherhood of Art and Joy and Poverty. . . .", "", "", "The open cafe-windows frame loungers at their liqueurs and beer,", "And walking past them one can hear fragments of Tosca and Boheme.", "", "", "And in the brilliant-lighted door of cinemas the barker calls,", "And lurid posters paint the walls with scenes of Love and crime and war.", "", "", "But follow past the flaming lights, borne onward with the stream of feet,", "Where Bullier's further up the street is marvellous on Thursday nights.", "", "", "Here all Bohemia flocks apace; you could not often find elsewhere", "So many happy heads and fair assembled in one time and place.", "", "", "Under the glare and noise and heat the galaxy of dancing whirls,", "Smokers, with covered heads, and girls dressed in the costume of the street.", "", "", "From tables packed around the wall the crowds that drink and frolic there", "Spin serpentines into the air far out over the reeking hall,", "", "", "That, settling where the coils unroll, tangle with pink and green and blue", "The crowds that rag to \"Hitchy-koo\" and boston to the \"Barcarole\". . . .", "", "", "Here Mimi ventures, at fifteen, to make her debut in romance,", "And join her sisters in the dance and see the life that they have seen.", "", "", "Her hair, a tight hat just allows to brush beneath the narrow brim,", "Docked, in the model's present whim, `frise' and banged above the brows.", "", "", "Uncorseted, her clinging dress with every step and turn betrays,", "In pretty and provoking ways her adolescent loveliness,", "", "", "As guiding Gaby or Lucile she dances, emulating them", "In each disturbing stratagem and each lascivious appeal.", "", "", "Each turn a challenge, every pose an invitation to compete,", "Along the maze of whirling feet the grave-eyed little wanton goes,", "", "", "And, flaunting all the hue that lies in childish cheeks and nubile waist,", "She passes, charmingly unchaste, illumining ignoble eyes. . . .", "", "", "But now the blood from every heart leaps madder through abounding veins", "As first the fascinating strains of \"El Irresistible\" start.", "", "", "Caught in the spell of pulsing sound, impatient elbows lift and yield", "The scented softnesses they shield to arms that catch and close them round,", "", "", "Surrender, swift to be possessed, the silken supple forms beneath", "To all the bliss the measures breathe and all the madness they suggest.", "", "", "Crowds congregate and make a ring. Four deep they stand and strain to see", "The tango in its ecstasy of glowing lives that clasp and cling.", "", "", "Lithe limbs relaxed, exalted eyes fastened on vacancy, they seem", "To float upon the perfumed stream of some voluptuous Paradise,", "", "", "Or, rapt in some Arabian Night, to rock there, cradled and subdued,", "In a luxurious lassitude of rhythm and sensual delight.", "", "", "And only when the measures cease and terminate the flowing dance", "They waken from their magic trance and join the cries that clamor \"Bis!\" . . .", "", "", "Midnight adjourns the festival. The couples climb the crowded stair,", "And out into the warm night air go singing fragments of the ball.", "", "", "Close-folded in desire they pass, or stop to drink and talk awhile", "In the cafes along the mile from Bullier's back to Montparnasse:", "", "", "The \"Closerie\" or \"La Rotonde\", where smoking, under lamplit trees,", "Sit Art's enamored devotees, chatting across their `brune' and `blonde'. . . .", "", "", "Make one of them and come to know sweet Paris -- not as many do,", "Seeing but the folly of the few, the froth, the tinsel, and the show --", "", "", "But taking some white proffered hand that from Earth's barren every day", "Can lead you by the shortest way into Love's florid fairyland.", "", "", "And that divine enchanted life that lurks under Life's common guise --", "That city of romance that lies within the City's toil and strife --", "", "", "Shall, knocking, open to your hands, for Love is all its golden key,", "And one's name murmured tenderly the only magic it demands.", "", "", "And when all else is gray and void in the vast gulf of memory,", "Green islands of delight shall be all blessed moments so enjoyed:", "", "", "When vaulted with the city skies, on its cathedral floors you stood,", "And, priest of a bright brotherhood, performed the mystic sacrifice,", "", "", "At Love's high altar fit to stand, with fire and incense aureoled,", "The celebrant in cloth of gold with Spring and Youth on either hand.", "", "III", "", "", "Choral Song", "", "", "Have ye gazed on its grandeur", "Or stood where it stands", "With opal and amber", "Adorning the lands,", "And orcharded domes", "Of the hue of all flowers?", "Sweet melody roams", "Through its blossoming bowers,", "Sweet bells usher in from its belfries the train of the honey-sweet hour.", "", "", "A city resplendent,", "Fulfilled of good things,", "On its ramparts are pendent", "The bucklers of kings.", "Broad banners unfurled", "Are afloat in its air.", "The lords of the world", "Look for harborage there.", "None finds save he comes as a bridegroom, having roses and vine in his hair.", "", "", "'Tis the city of Lovers,", "There many paths meet.", "Blessed he above others,", "With faltering feet,", "Who past its proud spires", "Intends not nor hears", "The noise of its lyres", "Grow faint in his ears!", "Men reach it through portals of triumph, but leave through a postern of tears.", "", "", "It was thither, ambitious,", "We came for Youth's right,", "When our lips yearned for kisses", "As moths for the light,", "When our souls cried for Love", "As for life-giving rain", "Wan leaves of the grove,", "Withered grass of the plain,", "And our flesh ached for Love-flesh beside it with bitter, intolerable pain.", "", "", "Under arbor and trellis,", "Full of flutes, full of flowers,", "What mad fortunes befell us,", "What glad orgies were ours!", "In the days of our youth,", "In our festal attire,", "When the sweet flesh was smooth,", "When the swift blood was fire,", "And all Earth paid in orange and purple to pavilion the bed of Desire!" ], "linecount": "174" }, { "title": "Fragments", "author": "Alan Seeger", "lines": [ "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 warmth and sunshine, outspread arms", "My gilded deep horizons. I rejoiced", "In yielding to all amorous influence", "And multiple impulsion of the flesh,", "To feel within my being surge and sway", "The force that all the stars acknowledge too.", "Amid the nebulous humanity", "Where I an atom crawled and cleaved and sundered,", "I saw a million motions, but one law;", "And from the city's splendor to my eyes", "The vapors passed and there was nought but Love,", "A ferment turbulent, intensely fair,", "Where Beauty beckoned and where Strength pursued.", "", "II", "", "", "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 house the glory of my name.", "", "", "But swifter than my fingers pushed their plan,", "Over the fair foundation scarce begun,", "While I with lovers dallied in the sun,", "The ivy clambered and the rose-vine ran.", "", "", "And now, too late to see my vision, rise,", "In place of golden pinnacles and towers,", "Only some sunny mounds of leaves and flowers,", "Only beloved of birds and butterflies.", "", "", "My friends were duped, my favorers deceived;", "But sometimes, musing sorrowfully there,", "That flowered wreck has seemed to me so fair", "I scarce regret the temple unachieved.", "", "III", "", "", "For there were nights . . . my love to him whose brow", "Has glistened with the spoils of nights like those,", "Home turning as a conqueror turns home,", "What time green dawn down every street uprears", "Arches of triumph! He has drained as well", "Joy's perfumed bowl and cried as I have cried:", "Be Fame their mistress whom Love passes by.", "This only matters: from some flowery bed,", "Laden with sweetness like a homing bee,", "If one have known what bliss it is to come,", "Bearing on hands and breast and laughing lips", "The fragrance of his youth's dear rose. To him", "The hills have bared their treasure, the far clouds", "Unveiled the vision that o'er summer seas", "Drew on his thirsting arms. This last thing known,", "He can court danger, laugh at perilous odds,", "And, pillowed on a memory so sweet,", "Unto oblivious eternity", "Without regret yield his victorious soul,", "The blessed pilgrim of a vow fulfilled.", "", "IV", "", "", "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 fifth moon, when it swims up once more", "Through orchard boughs where mating orioles build", "And apple flowers unfold,", "Find not of that dear need that all things tell", "The heart unburdened nor the arms unfilled.", "", "", "O Love, whereof my boyhood was the dream,", "My youth the beautiful novitiate,", "Life was so slight a thing and thou so great,", "How could I make thee less than all-supreme!", "In thy sweet transports not alone I thought", "Mingled the twain that panted breast to breast.", "The sun and stars throbbed with them; they were caught", "Into the pulse of Nature and possessed", "By the same light that consecrates it so.", "Love! -- 'tis the payment of the debt we owe", "The beauty of the world, and whensoe'er", "In silks and perfume and unloosened hair", "The loveliness of lovers, face to face,", "Lies folded in the adorable embrace,", "Doubt not as of a perfect sacrifice", "That soul partakes whose inspiration fills", "The springtime and the depth of summer skies,", "The rainbow and the clouds behind the hills,", "That excellence in earth and air and sea", "That makes things as they are the real divinity." ], "linecount": "83" } ]