A SOLDIER POET.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12066, 23 July 1917, Page 8

A SOLDIER POET.

Here are two notable poems by Alan Secgoi'. an American poet,, who was killed last, year while charging with his comrades of the Foreign Legion on the German trenches at. the village Belloy-en-Sa.nterre. His death gives a pathetic interest to the verses. He was but twenty-eight when he died,.and was educated at Harvard. The Great War found him vainly trying to publish his volume, of earlier poems in London. Before the war was three weeks old he had enlisted in the Foreign Legion.

I HAVE A PEXDF.ZVOUS "WITH DEATH. I have a rendezvous with Death At some disputed barricade When spring comes back with rustling shade And appjo-blospomf) fill the air— I havo a, rendezvous with Death "\Vhen spring brings back blue davs and fair.

It ruav be h* nhsll take rny hand And lead me iuto his dark land And close my eyes and quench ray breath— It may be, ]" shall pass him still. I have a, rendezvous with Death On some scarred *lopo of battered hill, When spring: comes around again this year And the first meadow-flowers appear.

God knows 'twere better to be deep Pillowed in slik and scented down, Where love throbs out in blissful sleep. Pulse m>h to pulse, and breath to breath Where hushed awakeninßF are dear . . . But I've «. retideznus with Death A midnight in some flawing town, When sp'rinsr trips north again this year. And T to niv pledpred word am truo, 1 shall not {nil that rendezvous.

THE ELOQUENT DEAD. Thore, holding etill, in frozen steadfastness Their bayonets toward the beckoninz fron-

tiers, They lie—our comrades—lie. among their

peers. Clad in the glory of fallen warrior*, Grin.clusters under thoruv irellises. Dry, furthest foam upon disastrous shore?. Leave? that made, last year beautiful, still

strewn Even ae they fell, unchanged, beneath ihs

ch an print: moon : And earth in her divine indifference Roils on, and many paltry things and mean Prate to be heard and ca.per to be se-en. Btu they aro sileut. calm; their eloquence Ts tha.t incomparable attitude.; N"o human presences their witness are, But summer clouds and eunset. crimson hued. And shower? and nijrht winds and the

northern star. Nay, even our salutations seem profane-, Opposed to tlieir Elvsian quietude; Our salutations calhiifr from afar, From our ignoble plane And undistinction of our lesser parts: Hail, brothers, and farewell; you are twic? blessed, brave, hearts.