Poems of Alan Seeger Part 17

Drink sometimes, you whose footsteps yet may tread The undisturbed, delightful paths of Earth, To those whose blood, in pious duty shed, Hallows the soil where that same wine had birth.

Here, by devoted comrades laid away, Along our lines they slumber where they fell, Beside the crater at the Ferme d'Alger And up the b.l.o.o.d.y slopes of La Pompelle,

And round the city whose cathedral towers The enemies of Beauty dared profane, And in the mat of multicolored flowers That clothe the sunny chalk-fields of Champagne.

Under the little crosses where they rise The soldier rests. Now round him undismayed The cannon thunders, and at night he lies At peace beneath the eternal fusillade... .

That other generations might possess -- From shame and menace free in years to come -- A richer heritage of happiness, He marched to that heroic martyrdom.

Esteeming less the forfeit that he paid Than undishonored that his flag might float Over the towers of liberty, he made His breast the bulwark and his blood the moat.

Obscurely sacrificed, his nameless tomb, Bare of the sculptor's art, the poet's lines, Summer shall flush with poppy-fields in bloom, And Autumn yellow with maturing vines.

There the grape-pickers at their harvesting Shall lightly tread and load their wicker trays, Blessing his memory as they toil and sing In the slant sunshine of October days... .

I love to think that if my blood should be So privileged to sink where his has sunk, I shall not pa.s.s from Earth entirely, But when the banquet rings, when healths are drunk,

And faces that the joys of living fill Glow radiant with laughter and good cheer, In beaming cups some spark of me shall still Brim toward the lips that once I held so dear.

So shall one coveting no higher plane Than nature clothes in color and flesh and tone, Even from the grave put upward to attain The dreams youth cherished and missed and might have known;

And that strong need that strove unsatisfied Toward earthly beauty in all forms it wore, Not death itself shall utterly divide From the beloved shapes it thirsted for.

Alas, how many an adept for whose arms Life held delicious offerings perished here, How many in the prime of all that charms, Crowned with all gifts that conquer and endear!

Honor them not so much with tears and flowers, But you with whom the sweet fulfilment lies, Where in the anguish of atrocious hours Turned their last thoughts and closed their dying eyes,

Rather when music on bright gatherings lays Its tender spell, and joy is uppermost, Be mindful of the men they were, and raise Your gla.s.ses to them in one silent toast.

Drink to them--amorous of dear Earth as well, They asked no tribute lovelier than this -- And in the wine that ripened where they fell, Oh, frame your lips as though it were a kiss.

__

Champagne, France, July, 1915.

The Hosts

Purged, with the life they left, of all That makes life paltry and mean and small, In their new dedication charged With something heightened, enriched, enlarged, That lends a light to their l.u.s.ty brows And a song to the rhythm of their tramping feet, These are the men that have taken vows, These are the hardy, the flower, the elite, -- These are the men that are moved no more By the will to traffic and grasp and store And ring with pleasure and wealth and love The circles that self is the center of; But they are moved by the powers that force The sea forever to ebb and rise, That hold Arcturus in his course, And marshal at noon in tropic skies The clouds that tower on some snow-capped chain And drift out over the peopled plain.

They are big with the beauty of cosmic things.

Mark how their columns surge! They seem To follow the G.o.ddess with outspread wings That points toward Glory, the soldier's dream.

With bayonets bare and flags unfurled, They scale the summits of the world And fade on the farthest golden height In fair horizons full of light.

Comrades in arms there--friend or foe -- That trod the perilous, toilsome trail Through a world of ruin and blood and woe In the years of the great decision--hail!

Friend or foe, it shall matter nought; This only matters, in fine: we fought.

For we were young and in love or strife Sought exultation and craved excess: To sound the wildest debauch in life We staked our youth and its loveliness.

Let idlers argue the right and wrong And weigh what merit our causes had.

Putting our faith in being strong -- Above the level of good and bad -- For us, we battled and burned and killed Because evolving Nature willed, And it was our pride and boast to be The instruments of Destiny.

There was a stately drama writ By the hand that peopled the earth and air And set the stars in the infinite And made night gorgeous and morning fair, And all that had sense to reason knew That b.l.o.o.d.y drama must be gone through.

Some sat and watched how the action veered -- Waited, profited, trembled, cheered -- We saw not clearly nor understood, But yielding ourselves to the masterhand, Each in his part as best he could, We played it through as the author planned.

Maktoob

A sh.e.l.l surprised our post one day And killed a comrade at my side.

My heart was sick to see the way He suffered as he died.

I dug about the place he fell, And found, no bigger than my thumb, A fragment of the splintered sh.e.l.l In warm aluminum.

I melted it, and made a mould, And poured it in the opening, And worked it, when the cast was cold, Into a shapely ring.

And when my ring was smooth and bright, Holding it on a rounded stick, For seal, I bade a Turco write 'Maktoob' in Arabic.

'Maktoob!' "'Tis written!" ... So they think, These children of the desert, who From its immense expanses drink Some of its grandeur too.

Within the book of Destiny, Whose leaves are time, whose cover, s.p.a.ce, The day when you shall cease to be, The hour, the mode, the place,

Are marked, they say; and you shall not By taking thought or using wit Alter that certain fate one jot, Postpone or conjure it.

Learn to drive fear, then, from your heart.

If you must perish, know, O man, 'Tis an inevitable part Of the predestined plan.

And, seeing that through the ebon door Once only you may pa.s.s, and meet Of those that have gone through before The mighty, the elite ----

Guard that not bowed nor blanched with fear You enter, but serene, erect, As you would wish most to appear To those you most respect.

So die as though your funeral Ushered you through the doors that led Into a stately banquet hall Where heroes banqueted;

And it shall all depend therein Whether you come as slave or lord, If they acclaim you as their kin Or spurn you from their board.

So, when the order comes: "Attack!"

And the a.s.saulting wave deploys, And the heart trembles to look back On life and all its joys;

Or in a ditch that they seem near To find, and round your shallow trough Drop the big sh.e.l.ls that you can hear Coming a half mile off;

When, not to hear, some try to talk, And some to clean their guns, or sing, And some dig deeper in the chalk -- I look upon my ring:

And nerves relax that were most tense, And Death comes whistling down unheard, As I consider all the sense Held in that mystic word.

And it brings, quieting like balm My heart whose flutterings have ceased, The resignation and the calm And wisdom of the East.