[Illustration]
[Illustration]
ALAN SEEGER
SOLDIER OF THE FOREIGN LEGION
KILLED IN ACTION
JULY 4, 1916
Yet, sought they neither recompense nor praise,
Nor to be mentioned in another breath
Than their blue-coated comrades whose great days
It was their pride to share, ay! share even to death.
Nay, rather, France, to you they rendered thanks
(Seeing they came for honor, not for gain),
Who, opening to them your glorious ranks,
Gave them that grand occasion to excel,
That chance to live the life most free from stain
And that rare privilege of dying well.
_From a poem written by him in memory of American Volunteers fallen
for France, upon the occasion of a memorial service held before the
Lafayette-Washington statue on the Place des États-Unis in Paris, May
30, 1916._