Poems

by Alan Seeger

Overview

Alan Seeger's "Poems" stands as a poignant testament to American idealism during the First World War. This collection showcases Seeger's powerful voice, solidifying his place in the landscape of American poetry. Best known for the iconic "I Have a Rendezvous with Death," Seeger's work explores themes of patriotism, sacrifice, and the brutal realities of war.

This carefully prepared edition preserves Seeger's original verses, offering readers a direct connection to the sentiments and experiences of a young American poet serving on the battlefields of Europe. A significant contribution to both war poetry and modern poetry, "Poems" provides invaluable insight into the emotional and ideological climate of the early 20th century. It is a vital piece of literary history and a moving reflection on duty, honor, and the human cost of conflict.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.

This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.

Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781022941533
Publisher:	Anson Street Press
Publication date:	03/28/2025
Pages:	134
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.29(d)

Read an Excerpt

Six days in the trenches alternated with a three days' interval of rest "either billeted in the stables and haylofts of the village or encamped hi the woods and around the chateau." Thus the winter of 1914r-15 wore away, with little to break its monotony. The heaviest fighting was all to the northward. One gathers from his poem "The Aisne" that at Craonne he took part in the repulse of a serious enemy attack; but there is no mention of this in the letters before me. On March 12, 1915, he writes to his mother in fierce indignation over something that has appeared in an American paper as to life in the Foreign Legion. The writer of the "disgraceful article," he says, "like many others of his type, was long ago eliminated from our ranks, for a person buoyed up by no noble purpose is the first to succumb to the hardships of the winter that we have been through. ... If his lies did nothing worse than belittle his comrades, who are here for motives that he is unable to conceive, it would be only dishonourable. But when it comes to throwing discredit on the French Government, that in all its treatment of us has been generous beyond anything that one would think possible, it is too shameful for any words to characterize." With the coming of spring, there was of course some mitigation of the trials of the winter. Here is an almost idyllic passage from a letter to his sister, written on the fly-leaves of Les Confessions de J. J. Rousseau, Geneve, MDCCLXXXII: We put in a very pleasant week here—nine hours of guard at night in our outposts up on the hillside; in the daytime sleep, or foraging in the ruined villages, loafing in the pretty garden of the chateau, or reading up in thelibrary. We have cleaned this up now, and it is an altogether curious sensation to recline here in an ea...