I shall not lie to you any more,
Flatter or fawn to attain my end—
I am what never has been before,
Woman—and Friend.
I shall be strong as a man is strong,
I shall be fair as a man is fair,
Hand in locked hand we shall pass along
To a purer air:
I shall not drag at your bridle-rein,
Knee pressed to knee we shall ride the hill;
I shall not lie to you ever again—
_Will you love me still?_
_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.
_Willard Wattles_
Willard (Austin) Wattles was born at Bayneville, Kansas, July 8,
1888. He received his A.B. at the University of Kansas in 1909 and,
since 1910, has divided his time between teaching English and
harvesting wheat.
His first book was an anthology, _Sunflowers: A Book of Kansas
Poems_ (1914), to which he also contributed. _Lanterns in
Gethsemane_ (1918) consists, almost entirely, of mystical and
religious poems. There is, however, little of the sermonizing
unction and less cant in these fresh pages. There is an unusual
vibrancy here; a warm buoyance that glows against its theological
background. Many of Wattles’s verses have the peculiar grace of a
parable joined to a nursery rhyme; “The Builder,” “Jericho” and a
few others seem like scraps of the Scripture rendered by Mother
Goose.