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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=340422" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Ode in Memory of the American Volunteers Fallen for France</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">(To have been read before the statue of Lafayette and Washington in Paris, on Decoration Day, May 30, 1916). </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Ay, it is fitting on this holiday, <br>Commemorative of our soldier dead, <br>When -- with sweet flowers of our New England May <br>Hiding the lichened stones by fifty years made gray -- <br>Their graves in every town are garlanded, <br>That pious tribute should be given too <br>To our intrepid few <br>Obscurely fallen here beyond the seas. <br>Those to preserve their country's greatness died; <br>But by the death of these <br>Something that we can look upon with pride <br>Has been achieved, nor wholly unreplied <br>Can sneerers triumph in the charge they make <br>That from a war where Freedom was at stake <br>America withheld and, daunted, stood aside. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">II </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Be they remembered here with each reviving spring, <br>Not only that in May, when life is loveliest, <br>Around Neuville-Saint-Vaast and the disputed crest <br>Of Vimy, they, superb, unfaltering, <br>In that fine onslaught that no fire could halt, <br>Parted impetuous to their first assault; <br>But that they brought fresh hearts and springlike too <br>To that high mission, and 'tis meet to strew <br>With twigs of lilac and spring's earliest rose <br>The cenotaph of those <br>Who in the cause that history most endears <br>Fell in the sunny morn and flower of their young years. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">III </div><div style="margin:10px 0">et sought they neither recompense nor praise, <br>Nor to be mentioned in another breath <br>Than their blue coated comrades whose great days <br>It was their pride to share -- ay, share even to the death! <br>Nay, rather, France, to you they rendered thanks <br>(Seeing they came for honor, not for gain), <br>Who, opening to them your glorious ranks, <br>Gave them that grand occasion to excel, <br>That chance to live the life most free from stain <br>And that rare privilege of dying well. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">IV </div><div style="margin:10px 0">O friends! I know not since that war began <br>From which no people nobly stands aloof <br>If in all moments we have given proof <br>Of virtues that were thought American. <br>I know not if in all things done and said <br>All has been well and good, <br>Or if each one of us can hold his head <br>As proudly as he should,<br>Or, from the pattern of those mighty dead <br>Whose shades our country venerates to-day, </div><div style="margin:10px 0">If we've not somewhat fallen and somewhat gone astray. <br>But you to whom our land's good name is dear, <br>If there be any here <br>Who wonder if her manhood be decreased, <br>Relaxed its sinews and its blood less red <br>Than that at Shiloh and Antietam shed, <br>Be proud of these, have joy in this at least, <br>And cry: &quot;Now heaven be praised <br>That in that hour that most imperilled her, <br>Menaced her liberty who foremost raised <br>Europe's bright flag of freedom, some there were <br>Who, not unmindful of the antique debt, <br>Came back the generous path of Lafayette; <br>And when of a most formidable foe <br>She checked each onset, arduous to stem -- <br>Foiled and frustrated them -- <br>On those red fields where blow with furious blow <br>Was countered, whether the gigantic fray <br>Rolled by the Meuse or at the Bois Sabot, <br>Accents of ours were in the fierce melee; <br>And on those furthest rims of hallowed ground <br>Where the forlorn, the gallant charge expires, <br>When the slain bugler has long ceased to sound, <br>And on the tangled wires <br>The last wild rally staggers, crumbles, stops, <br>Withered beneath the shrapnel's iron showers: -- <br>Now heaven be thanked, we gave a few brave drops; <br>Now heaven be thanked, a few brave drops were ours.&quot; </div><div style="margin:10px 0">V </div><div style="margin:10px 0">There, holding still, in frozen steadfastness, <br>Their bayonets toward the beckoning frontiers, <br>They lie -- our comrades -- lie among their peers, <br>Clad in the glory of fallen warriors, <br>Grim clusters under thorny trellises, <br>Dry, furthest foam upon disastrous shores, <br>Leaves that made last year beautiful, still strewn <br>Even as they fell, unchanged, beneath the changing moon; <br>And earth in her divine indifference <br>Rolls on, and many paltry things and mean <br>Prate to be heard and caper to be seen. <br>But they are silent, calm; their eloquence <br>Is that incomparable attitude; <br>No human presences their witness are, <br>But summer clouds and sunset crimson-hued, <br>And showers and night winds and the northern star. <br>Nay, even our salutations seem profane, <br>Opposed to their Elysian quietude; <br>Our salutations calling from afar, <br>From our ignobler plane <br>And undistinction of our lesser parts: <br>Hail, brothers, and farewell; you are twice blest, brave hearts. <br>Double your glory is who perished thus, <br>For you have died for France and vindicated us.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Alan+Seeger">Alan Seeger</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=340422" data-title="Ode in Memory of the American Volunteers Fallen for France de Alan Seeger" data-description="(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..."></div>
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