Nor Byron, nor Shelley, nor Keats, nor Swinburne, nor Brooke, nor any
other poet ever sounded the heights and depths and glory of Youth as
did Seeger. He sang it as he breathed it and lived it, and just as
naturally. His singing of it was as rhythmic as breathing, and as sweet
as the first song of an oriole in springtime. In his fifth sonnet, a
form in which he loved to write and of which he was a master, he sings
youth in terms "almost divine":
"Phantoms of bliss that beckon and recede--,
Thy strange allurements, City that I love,
Maze of romance, where I have followed too
The dream Youth treasures of its dearest need
And stars beyond thy towers bring tidings of."
Poems by Alan Seeger.
He loved New York; he loved Paris; he loved any city because youth and
life and romance and love were there. He drank all of these into his
soul like a thirsty desert drinks rain; to spring to flowers and life
and color again. He drank of life and youth as a flower drinks of dew,
or a bird at a city fountain, with fluttering joy, drinks, singing as
it drinks. You feel all of that eagerness in "Sonnet VI" where he says:
"Where I drank deep the bliss of being young,
The strife and sweet potential flux of things
I sought Youth's dream of happiness among!"
Poems by Alan Seeger.