Alan Seeger was born in New York City on June 22, 1888, and received a BA from Harvard University in 1910 where he edited and wrote for the Harvard Monthly– alongside future 10 Days that Shook the World author John Reed and had T.S. Eliot and Walter Lippmann in his classes.
A poet and idealist of sorts, he moved to Paris and was a resident of the City of Lights when the Germans came in 1914. A foreigner in France, he did what many both before and after did– joined up in the Foreign Legion. Fighting at the time in metropolitan France, a rarity for the unit, Seeger was killed at Belloy-en-Santerre in the Somme, riddled by a Boche Spandau while cheering on a charge of his fellow legionnaires, age 28.
He gave his last full measure on July 4, 1916 along with 900 other legionaries, including fellow poet, Camil Campanya. Able to seize the battlefield, the Germans withdrew from the ruined village on July 8.
The Legion remembered him in a ceremony on the 100th anniversary last month, and unveiled a marker.
Seeger is perhaps best remembered for his poem, I have a rendezvous with Death.
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.
