Poems of Alan Seeger Part 20

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

From that dread threshold only, gazing back, Have eyes in swift illumination seen Life utterly revealed, and guessed therein What things were vital and what things were vain.

Know then, like a vast ocean from my feet Spreading away into the morning sky, I saw unrolled my vanished days, and, lo, Oblivion like a morning mist obscured Toils, trials, ambitions, agitations, ease, And like green isles, sun-kissed, with sweet perfume Loading the airs blown back from that dim gulf, Gleamed only through the all-involving haze The hours when we have loved and been beloved.

Therefore, sweet friends, as often as by Love You rise absorbed into the harmony Of planets singing round magnetic suns, Let not propriety nor prejudice Nor the precepts of jealous age deny What Sense so incontestably affirms; Cling to the blessed moment and drink deep Of the sweet cup it tends, as there alone Were that which makes life worth the pain to live.

What is so fair as lovers in their joy That dies in sleep, their sleep that wakes in joy?

Caressing arms are their light pillows. They That like lost stars have wandered hitherto Lonesome and lightless through the universe, Now glow transfired at Nature's flaming core; They are the centre; constellated heaven Is the embroidered panoply spread round Their bridal, and the music of the spheres Rocks them in hushed epithalamium.

I know that there are those whose idle tongues Blaspheme the beauty of the world that was So wondrous and so wors.h.i.+pful to me.

I call them those that, in the palace where Down perfumed halls the Sleeping Beauty lay, Wandered without the secret or the key.

I know that there are those, of gentler heart, Broken by grief or by deception bowed, Who in some realm beyond the grave conceive The bliss they found not here; but, as for me, In the soft fibres of the tender flesh I saw potentialities of Joy Ten thousand lifetimes could not use. Dear Earth, In this dark month when deep as morning dew On thy maternal breast shall fall the blood Of those that were thy loveliest and thy best, If it be fate that mine shall mix with theirs, Hear this my natural prayer, for, purified By that Lethean agony and clad In more resplendent powers, I ask nought else Than reincarnate to retrace my path, Be born again of woman, walk once more Through Childhood's fragrant, flowery wonderland And, entered in the golden realm of Youth, Fare still a pilgrim toward the copious joys I savored here yet scarce began to sip; Yea, with the comrades that I loved so well Resume the banquet we had scarce begun When in the street we heard the clarion-call And each man sprang to arms--ay, even myself Who loved sweet Youth too truly not to share Its pain no less than its delight. If prayers Are to be prayed, lo, here is mine! Be this My resurrection, this my recompense!

Ode in Memory of the American Volunteers Fallen for France

(To have been read before the statue of Lafayette and Was.h.i.+ngton in Paris, on Decoration Day, May 30, 1916.)

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 a.s.sault; 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

Yet 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 n.o.bly 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 s.h.i.+loh 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 cl.u.s.ters under th.o.r.n.y trellises, Dry, furthest foam upon disastrous sh.o.r.es, 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 att.i.tude; 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 ign.o.bler 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.