At the Tomb of Napoleon Before the Elections in America - November, 1912

I stood beside his sepulchre whose fame,
Hurled over Europe once on bolt and blast,
Now glows far off as storm-clouds overpast
Glow in the sunset flushed with glorious flame.
Has Nature marred his mould? Can Art acclaim
No hero now, no man with whom men side
As with their hearts' high needs personified?
There are will say, One such our lips could name;
Columbia gave him birth. Him Genius most
Gifted to rule. Against the world's great man
Lift their low calumny and sneering cries
The Pharisaic multitude, the host
Of piddling slanderers whose little eyes
Know not what greatness is and never can.

Alan Seeger

Alan Seeger was an American poet born on June 22, 1888, in New York City. He is best known for his poem 'I Have a Rendezvous with Death,' which gained popularity during World War I. Seeger was a Harvard University alumnus and moved to Paris to pursue his literary ambitions. When World War I broke out, he enlisted in the French Foreign Legion and was killed in action on July 4, 1916, during the Battle of the Somme. Seeger's poetry, marked by its romantic and idealistic tone, continues to be celebrated for its emotional depth and poignant reflections on mortality.

Alan Seeger

Sonnet XI - On Returning to the Front after Leave

Alan Seeger, Simple Poetry

Sonnet I

Alan Seeger, Simple Poetry

Sonnet V

Alan Seeger, Simple Poetry

I Have a Rendezvous with Death . . .

Alan Seeger, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

To Napoleon

The heroes of the present and the past
Were puny, vague, and nothingness to thee:
Thou didst a span grasp mighty to the last,
And strain for glory when thy die was cast.
That little island, on the Atlantic sea,
Was but a dust-spot in a lake: thy mind
Swept space as shoreless as eternity.
Thy giant powers outstript this gaudy age
Of heroes; and, as looking at the sun,
So gazing on thy greatness, made men blind
To merits, that had adoration won
In olden times. The world was on thy page
Of victories but a comma. Fame could find
No parallel, thy greatness to presage.

John Clare

Ode in Memory of the American Volunteers Fallen for France

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


I

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 the 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.


II

Be the...

Alan Seeger

My Napoleon.

("Toujours lui! lui partout!")

[XL., December, 1828.]


Above all others, everywhere I see
His image cold or burning!
My brain it thrills, and oftentime sets free
The thoughts within me yearning.
My quivering lips pour forth the words
That cluster in his name of glory -
The star gigantic with its rays of swords
Whose gleams irradiate all modern story.

I see his finger pointing where the shell
Should fall to slay most rabble,
And save foul regicides; or strike the knell
Of weaklings 'mid the tribunes' babble.
A Consul then, o'er young but proud,
With midnight poring thinned, and sallow,
But dreams of Empire pierce the transient cloud,
And round pale face and lank locks form the halo.

And soon the Caesar, with an eye ...

Victor-Marie Hugo

To The Napoleon Column.

[Oct. 9, 1830.]


When with gigantic hand he placed,
For throne, on vassal Europe based,
That column's lofty height -
Pillar, in whose dread majesty,
In double immortality,
Glory and bronze unite!
Aye, when he built it that, some day,
Discord or war their course might stay,
Or here might break their car;
And in our streets to put to shame
Pigmies that bear the hero's name
Of Greek and Roman war.
It was a glorious sight; the world
His hosts had trod, with flags unfurled,
In veteran array;
Kings fled before him, forced to yield,
He, conqueror on each battlefield,
Their cannon bore away.
Then, with his victors back he came;
All France with booty teemed, her name
Was writ on sculptured stone;
And Paris cried with joy, as whe...

Victor-Marie Hugo

The Last Caesar

1851-1870

I

Now there was one who came in later days
To play at Emperor: in the dead of night
Stole crown and sceptre, and stood forth to light
In sudden purple.    The dawn's straggling rays
Showed Paris fettered, murmuring in amaze,
With red hands at her throat--a piteous sight.
Then the new Caesar, stricken with affright
At his own daring, shrunk from public gaze

In the Elysee, and had lost the day
But that around him flocked his birds of prey,
Sharp-beaked, voracious, hungry for the deed.
'Twixt hope and fear behold great Caesar hang!
Meanwhile, methinks, a ghostly laughter rang
Through the rotunda of the Invalides.

II

What if the boulevards, at set of sun,
Reddened, but not with sunset's kindly glow?
What if fr...

Thomas Bailey Aldrich

At General Grant's Tomb.

Afar my loyal spirit stirred
    At mention of his name;
Afar in ringing notes I heard
    The clarion voice of fame;
So to his tomb, hope long deferred,
    With reverent step I came.

The pilgrim muse revivified
    A half-forgotten day:
A slow procession, tearful-eyed,
    In funeral array,
And from MacGregor's lonely side
    A hero borne away.

Here sleeps he now, where long ago
    Hath nature raised his mound:
A mighty channel far below,
    Divided hills around,
Where countless thousands come and go
    As to a shrine renowned.

With awe do strangers' eyes discern
    A casket mid the green
Luxuriance of flower and fern;
    Airy and cool and clean,
Unchanged from spring to spring's return,
    This cha...

Hattie Howard