Ode in Memory of the American Volunteers Fallen for France

Alan Seeger

(To have been read before the statue of Lafayette and Washington in paris, on Decoration Day, May 30, 1916)

Ay, it is fitting on this holiday,

Commemorative of our soldier dead,

When—with sweet flowers of our New England May

Hiding the lichened stones by fifty years made gray—

Their graves in every town are garlanded,

That pious tribute should be given too

To our intrepid few

Obscurely fallen here beyond their seas.

Those to preserve their country's greatness died;

But by the death of these

Something that we can look upon with pride

Has been achieved, nor wholly unreplied

Can sneerers triumph in the charge they make

That from a war where freedom was at stake

America withheld and, daunted, stood aside.

Be they remembered here with each reviving spring,

Not only that in May, when life is loveliest,

Around Neuville-Saint-Vaast and the disputed crest

Of Vimy, they, superb, unfaltering,

In that fine onslaught that no fire could halt,

Parted impetuous to their first assault;

But that they brought fresh hearts and springlike too

To that high mission, and 'tis meet to strew

With twigs of lilac and spring's earliest rose

The cenotaph of those

Who in the cause that history most endears

Fell in the sunny morn and flower of their young years.

III

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 the death!

Nay, rather, France, to you they rendered thanks

(Seeing they came for honour, 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.

O friends! I know not since that war began

From which no people nobly stands aloof

If in all moments we have given proof

Of virtues that were thought American.

I know not if in all things done and said

All has been well and good,

Or of each one of us can hold his head

As proudly as he should,

Or, from the pattern of those mighty dead

Whose shades our country venerates to-day,

If we 've not somewhat fallen and somewhat gone astray,

But you to whom our land's good name is dear,

If there be any here

Who wonder if her manhood be decreased,

Relaxed its sinews and its blood less red

Than that at Shiloh and Antietam shed,

Be proud of these, have joy in this at least,

And cry: Now heaven be praised

That in that hour that most imperilled her,

Menaced her liberty who foremost raised

Europe's bright flag of freedom, some there were

Who, not unmindful of the antique debt,

Came back the generous path of Lafayette;

And when of a most formidable foe

She checked each onset, arduous to stem—

Foiled and frustrated them—

On those red fields where blow with furious blow

Was countered, whether the gigantic fray

Rolled by the Meuse or at the Bois Sabot,

Accents of ours were in the fierce mêlée;

And on those furthest rims of hallowed ground

Where the forlorn, the gallant charge expires,

When the slain bugler has long ceased to sound,

And on the tangled wires

The last wild rally staggers, crumbles, stops,

Withered beneath the shrapnel's iron showers:—

Now heaven be thanked, we gave a few brave drops;

Now heaven be thanked, a few brave drops were ours.'

There, holding still, in frozen steadfastness,

Their bayonets toward the beckoning frontiers,

They lie—our comrades—lie among their peers,

Clad in the glory of fallen warriors,

Grim clustered under thorny trellises,

Dry, furthest foam upon disastrous shores,

Leaves that made last year beautiful, still strewn

Even as they fell, unchanged, beneath the changing moon;

And earth in her divine indifference

Rolls on, and many paltry things and mean

Prate to be heard and caper to be seen.

But they are silent, clam; their eloquence

Is that incomparable attitude;

No human presences their witness are,

But summer clouds and sunset crimson-hued,

And showers and night winds and the northern star

Nay, even our salutations seem profane,

Opposed to their Elysian quietude;

Our salutations calling from afar,

From our ignobler plane

And undistinction of our lesser parts:

Hail, brothers, and farewell; you are twice blest, brave hearts.

Double your glory is who perished thus,

For you have died for France and vindicated us.

600

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And when my Joy was born, I held it in my arms and stood on the
house-top shouting, “Come ye, my neighbours, come and see, for Joy
this day is born unto me. Come and behold this gladsome thing that
laugheth in the sun.”

But none of my neighbours came to look upon my Joy, and great was
my astonishment.

And every day for seven moons I proclaimed my Joy from the
house-top—and yet no one heeded me. And my Joy and I were alone,
unsought and unvisited.

Then my Joy grew pale and weary because no other heart but mine
held its loveliness and no other lips kissed its lips.

Then my Joy died of isolation.

And now I only remember my dead Joy in remembering my dead Sorrow.
But memory is an autumn leaf that murmurs a while in the wind and
then is heard no more.

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