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Sonnet XI - On Returning to the Front after Leave

By Alan Seeger

Topics: classic

Apart sweet women (for whom Heaven be blessed),     Comrades, you cannot think how thin and blue     Look the leftovers of mankind that rest,     Now that the cream has been skimmed off in you.     War has its horrors, but has this of good -     That its sure processes sort out and bind     Brave hearts in one intrepid brotherhood     And leave the shams and imbeciles behind.     Now turn we joyful to the great attacks,     Not only that we face in a fair field     Our valiant foe and all his deadly tools,     But also that we turn disdainful backs     On that poor world we scorn yet die to shield -     That world of cowards, hypocrites, and fools.

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Author:Alan Seeger

"Apart sweet women (for whom Heaven be blessed),..." by Alan Seeger

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"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"

Alan Seeger

About Alan Seeger

Alan Seeger (1888–1916) was an American poet who fought in the French Foreign Legion during World War I. His poem "I Have a Rendezvous with Death" is one of the most famous war poems, and he was killed in action at the Battle of the Somme.

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