I can remember once, ere I was dead, The sorrow and the prayer and bitter cry When they who loved me stood around the bed, Watching till I should die:
They need not so have grieved their souls for me, Grouped statue-like to count my failing breath— Only one thought strove faintly, bitterly With the kind drug of Death:
How once upon a time, unwept, unknown, Unhelped by pitying sigh or murmured prayer, My youth died in slow agony alone With none to watch or care.
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 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.