Alan Seeger
Alan Seeger was born in New York, June 22, 1888. When he was still a baby, his parents moved to Staten Island, where he remained through boyhood. Later, there were several other migrations, including a sojourn in Mexico, where Seeger spent the most impressionable years of his youth. In 1906, he entered Harvard; became one of the editors of the Harvard Monthly; returned to New York in 1910 and in 1913 set off for Paris—“a departing point,” wrote William Archer, “which may fairly be called his Hegira, the turning point of his history.” 1914 came, and the European war had not entered its third week when, along with some forty of his fellow-countrymen, Seeger enlisted in the Foreign Legion of France. He was in action almost continually, serving on various fronts. On July 1, 1916, a new advance began; a few days later the Legion was ordered to clear the Germans out of the village of Belloy-en-Santerre. On the fourth of July, Seeger advanced in the first rush and his squad was practically wiped out by hidden machine-gun fire. Seeger fell, mortally wounded, and died the next morning.
Seeger’s literary promise was far greater than his poetic accomplishment. With the exception of his one famous poem, there is little of importance though much of charm in his collected Poems (published, with an Introduction by William Archer, in 1916). His letters from the front (published in 1917) show a more powerful touch, a keener sense of perception. Had he lived a few years more, he might have been a valuable recorder of a changed and changing world.
“I Have a Rendezvous With Death”58
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.