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POEMS FOR REMBRANCE DAY, NOVEMBER 11 Rendezvous by Alan Seeger 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, Alan Seeger (1886-1916) I shall not fail that rendezvous. Age 22 Alan Seeger (1888 - 1916) was an American poet who fought and died in World War I serving in the French Foreign Legion. A statue to his memory and to the memory of his comrades, Americans who had volunteered to fight for France, was erected in the Place des États-Unis, Paris. He was contemporary with poet T.S. Eliot. His brother Charles Seeger, a noted musicologist, was the father of the American folk singer, Pete Seeger. Alan Seeger entered Harvard in 1906, graduating in 1910. After living in Greenwich Village for two years, he moved to the Latin Quarter of Paris, On 24th August 1914, Seeger joined the French Foreign Legion so that he could fight for the Allies in World War I (the United States did not enter the war until 1917). Seeger was killed in action at Belloy-en-Santerre on 4th July 1916, famously cheering on his fellow soldiers in a successful charge after being hit several times himself by machine gun fire. I Have a Rendezvous with Death, was published posthumously. A recurrent theme in both his poetic works and his personal writings was his desire for his life to end gloriously at an early age. .

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Alan Seeger: Medievalism As an Alternative Ideology
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by K-State Research Exchange This is the author’s final, peer-reviewed manuscript as accepted for publication. The publisher-formatted version may be available through the publisher’s web site or your institution’s library. Alan Seeger: medievalism as an alternative ideology Tim Dayton How to cite this manuscript If you make reference to this version of the manuscript, use the following information: Dayton, T. (2012). Alan Seeger: Medievalism as an alternative ideology. Retrieved from http://krex.ksu.edu Published Version Information Citation: Dayton, T. (2012). Alan Seeger: Medievalism as an alternative ideology. First World War Studies, 3(2), 125-144. Copyright: © 2012 Taylor & Francis Digital Object Identifier (DOI): doi:10.1080/19475020.2012.728698 Publisher’s Link: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19475020.2012.728698 This item was retrieved from the K-State Research Exchange (K-REx), the institutional repository of Kansas State University. K-REx is available at http://krex.ksu.edu 0 Alan Seeger: Medievalism as an Alternative Ideology Tim Dayton* Department of English Kansas State University Manhattan, KS USA 66502 * E-mail: [email protected]; Tel. 785-532-2155 1 Alan Seeger: Medievalism as an Alternative Ideology Abstract The American poet Alan Seeger imagined the First World War as an opportunity to realize medieval values, which were embodied for him in Sir Philip Sidney. Sidney epitomized Seeger’s three ideals: “Love and Arms and Song,” which contrasted with the materialism and sophistication of modernity. His embrace of “Arms” and the desire for intense, authentic experience led Seeger, who was living in Paris in August 1914, to enlist in the French Foreign Legion, in which he served until his death in combat in July 1916.
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April 1917 543 Cass Street, Chicago
VOL. X NO. I APRIL 1917 My People Carl Sandburg 1 Loam—The Year—Chicago Poet—Street Window— Adelaide Crapsey—Repetitions—Throw Roses—Fire- logs — Baby Face — Moon — Alix — Gargoyle — Prairie Waters—Moon-set—Wireless—Tall Grass—Bringers The Reawakening—Two Epitaphs . Walter de la Mare 12 Prussians Don't Believe in Dreams—To a French Aviator Fallen in Battle . Morris Gilbert 14 Out of Mexico . Grace Hazard Conkling 18 Velardeña Sunset—Santa Maria del Rio—The Museum —Gulf View—Spring Day—Patio Scene The Fugitive—The Crowning Gift . Gladys Cromwell 21 Easter Evening .... James Church Alvord 23 A Woman—The Stranger—To an Old Couple Scudder Middleton 24 Praise—To— William Saphier 26 Toadstools Alfred Kreymborg 27 Love Was Dead—Lanes—Again—Courtship—Sir Hob bledehoy—1914—Dirge Editorial Comment 32 The City and the Tower—Verner von Heidenstam Reviews . 38 Our Contemporaries—Correspondence—Notes . SO Copyright 1917 by Harriet Monroe. All rights reserved 543 CASS STREET, CHICAGO $1.50 PER YEAR SINGLE NUMBERS, 15 CENTS Published monthly by Ralph Fletcher Seymour, 1025 Fine Arts Building, Chicago. Entered as second-class matter at Postoffice, Chicago. , VOL. X No. I APRIL 1917 MY PEOPLE MY people are gray, pigeon gray, dawn gray, storm gray. I call them beautiful, and I wonder where they are going. LOAM In the loam we sleep, In the cool moist loam, To the lull of years that pass And the break of stars, From the loam, then, The soft warm loam, We rise: To shape of rose leaf, Of face and shoulder. [1] POETRY: A Magazine of Verse We stand, then, To a whiff of life, Lifted to the silver of the sun Over and out of the loam A day.
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