"Spirit of Beauty, whose sweet impulses, Flung like the rose of dawn across the sea, Alone can flush the exalted consciousness With shafts of sensible divinity, Light of the World, essential loveliness."
Poems by Alan Seeger.
Then, talking about the "Wanderer" as though that character were some far off person no kin to the poet (a way that poets have to hide the pulsing of their own hearts), Seeger writes of Beauty. But we who know him cannot be made to think that this "Wanderer" is a fellow we do not know; "nor Launcelot, nor another." It is he, the poet of whom we write. It bears his imprint. It bears his trade mark. It is stamped "with the image of the king." He cannot hide from us in this:
"His heart the love of Beauty held as hides One gem most pure a casket of pure gold.
It was too rich a lesser thing to hold; It was not large enough for aught besides."
Poems by Alan Seeger.
THE SONG OF FAME
Fame always lures Youth. Perhaps later experience proves that it is indeed a hollow thing, hardly worth striving for. But to Youth there is no goal that calls more insistently than Fame. Youth and Beauty and Fame--how closely akin they are! If Beauty and Fame keep him company, Youth is next the stars with delight. And so it is natural that this young poet shall sing the song of Fame with exuberant enthusiasm. He says in "The Need to Love":
"And I have followed Fame with less devotion, And kept no real ambition but to see Rise from the foam of Nature"s sunlit ocean My dream of palpable divinity."
Poems by Alan Seeger.
And while we are listening to the music of these human stars, the music of the celestial spheres set down in human words, let us catch again the poetic echo of that third line and let it linger long as we listen, "Rise from the foam of Nature"s sunlit ocean," and
"Forget it not till the crowns are crumbled, Till the swords of the kings are rent with rust; Forget it not till the hills lie humbled, And the Springs of the seas run dust,"
that, as Edwin Markham sings, this echo is the echo of the eternal poetic music.
With these wondrous lines he answers the question which he himself asks in "Fragments," "What is Success?"
"Out of the endless ore Of deep desire to coin the utmost gold Of pa.s.sionate memory: to have lived so well That the fifth moon, when it swims up once more Through orchard boughs where mating orioles build And apple trees unfold, Find not of that dear need that all things tell The heart unburdened nor the arms unfilled."
Poems by Alan Seeger.
Joy comes next in our treatment of the outstanding singings of this singing poet, and he himself has given us the connecting link in the following lines:
"He has drained as well Joy"s perfumed bowl and cried as I have cried: Be Fame their mistress whom Love pa.s.ses by."
Poems by Alan Seeger.
And thus smoothly we pa.s.s from Fame to Joy and hear him sing of this fourth high peak of Youth.
THE SONG OF JOY
Whatever he did, whatever he sang, whatever he lived, this man swept all things else aside and plunged in over head. He loved to swim and he loved to dive. Perhaps into his living and his writing he carried this athletic joy also, and as he lived he lived to the full. It seems so as one reads in "I Loved" these impa.s.sioned lines:
"From a boy I gloated on existence. Earth to me Seemed all sufficient and my sojourn there One trembling opportunity for joy."
Poems by Alan Seeger.
And then one pauses to weep awhile, and the lines grow dim as he reads them again to know that this man, who so loved to live, who gloated on existence, who saw life as a trembling opportunity for Joy, must leave it so soon. And yet he left it n.o.bly. Again in "An Ode to Antares" he sings of Joy:
"What clamor importuning from every booth!
At Earth"s great market where Joy is trafficked in Buy while thy purse yet swells with golden Youth!"
Poems by Alan Seeger.
Kindly Age, Age who had not lost his love, always sings like that to Youth; always tells Youth to live while he may, play while the playworld is his. Every poet who has older grown, from Shakespeare to Lowell, and yet retained his love, has told us this. We expect it of older poets, but here a young poet sees it all clearly; that Youth must buy Joy while his purse is full with Youth. And ye who rob Youth of playtime, of Joy, ye capitalists, ye money makers and life destroyers, listen to this dead poet who yet lives in these words. Fathers, mothers, let childhood spend its all for Joy while the purse of Youth is full. It will be empty after while and it shall never be filled again with Youth. So says the Poet.
THE SONG OF LOVE
The discriminating reader of Seeger soon sees, however, that, while he sings as needs he must, because of the springs that are within him bubbling over, sings of Youth, and Beauty, and Fame, and Joy, yet he knows that these are not all of life. He knows that there are higher things than these. These higher things are Love, Death, G.o.d--what a trilogy!
Love is all. He is sure of this. He is true to this. Romantic love he knows--love of comrade, love of G.o.d. In this same "An Ode to Natural Beauty" his final conclusion is that Love is best after all:
"On any venture set, but "twas the first For Beauty willed them, yea whatever be The faults I wanted wings to rise above; I am cheered yet to think how steadfastly I have been loyal to the love of Love!"
Poems by Alan Seeger.
This is more than romantic love; it is the "love of Love."
And lest this be not strong enough, he sings in "The Need to Love" as great a song as man ever heard on this great theme:
"The need to love that all the stars obey Entered my heart and banished all beside.
Bare were the gardens where I used to stray; Faded the flowers that one time satisfied."
Poems by Alan Seeger.
Then, not content, he sets up an altar of poetry and dedicates it to Love and lights a fire of worship there, and leaves it not, nor night nor day:
"All that"s not love is the dearth of my days, The leaves of the volume with rubric unwrit, The temple in times without prayer, without praise, The altar unset and the candle unlit."
Poems by Alan Seeger.
If Love be not queen to him, the palace is cold and barren; the "altar unset and the candle unlit"
THE SONG OF DEATH
Like Brooke, a victim of the Hun, so Seeger, also a victim of the barbarian, seemed to feel the constant presence of Death, an unseen guest at the Feast of Youth and Joy and Fame and Love. Perhaps the war made these two imaginative poets think of Death sooner than Youth usually gives him heed. But most men will think of Death when they are face to face with the shadow day and night as were these soldier-crusading poets; when they see him stalking in every trench, in every wood, on every hill and road, and in every field and village. But how bravely he spoke of Death!--
"Learn to drive fear, then, from your heart.
If you must perish, know, O man, "Tis an inevitable part Of the predestined plan."
Poems by Alan Seeger.
And again in this same poem, "Makatooh," he sings of Death:
"Guard that, not bowed nor blanched with fear You enter, but serene, erect, As you would wish most to appear To those you most respect.