I who, conceived beneath another star, 
Had been a prince and played with life, instead 
Have been its slave, an outcast exiled far 
From the fair things my faith has merited. 
My ways have been the ways that wanderers tread 
And those that make romance of poverty— 
Soldier, I shared the soldier’s board and bed, 
And Joy has been a thing more oft to me 
Whispered by summer wind and summer sea 
Than known incarnate in the hours it lies 
All warm against our hearts and laughs into our eyes.

I know not if in risking my best days 
I shall leave utterly behind me here 
This dream that lightened me through lonesome ways 
And that no disappointment made less dear; 
Sometimes I think that, where the hilltops rear 
Their white entrenchments back of tangled wire, 
Behind the mist Death only can make clear, 
There, like Brunhilde ringed with flaming fire, 
Lies what shall ease my heart’s immense desire: 
There, where beyond the horror and the pain 
Only the brave shall pass, only the strong attain.

Truth or delusion, be it as it may, 
Yet think it true, dear friends, for, thinking so, 
That thought shall nerve our sinews on the day 
When to the last assault our bugles blow: 
Reckless of pain and peril we shall go, 
Heads high and hearts aflame and bayonets bare, 
And we shall brave eternity as though 
Eyes looked on us in which we would seem fair— 
One waited in whose presence we would wear, 
Even as a lover who would be well-seen, 
Our manhood faultless and our honour clean.

Mandy

Here is the poem you asked me about – it was called Liebestod (which means love-death in German)

It was written by a chap named Alan Seeger who was born in New York in 1888 and after living a bohemian life in Paris enlisted in the French Foreign Legion.

Seeger and forty other Americans who joined at about the same time were killed on the Somme on the fourth of July 1916 when six German machine guns enfiladed them

Their deaths made headline news in many American newspapers

Thank you for enquiring about my health I can assure you that my injury is totally fixed now

We left Ibiza a few days ago where I was convalescing

Everything is okay and ship shape apart from an odd mutiny from Josie

We have vague but firming up plans to sail around the Med as so far in our great adventure a great deal of misfortune has befallen us with both Mummy and I managing to break something

We will be in what is left of the UK for Christmas and I hope to drop in to see you over the festive period

Look after yourself and good luck with the book

Joe x