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\u2014
Soldier, I shared the soldier\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\u2019s immense desire:
There, where beyond the horror and the pain
Only the brave shall pass, only the strong attain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\u2014
One waited in whose presence we would wear,
Even as a lover who would be well-seen,
Our manhood faultless and our honour clean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mandy <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here is the poem you asked me about – it was called Liebestod (which means love-death in German)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Their deaths made headline news in many American newspapers <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thank you for enquiring about my health I can assure you that my injury is totally fixed now <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We left Ibiza a few days ago where I was convalescing <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Everything is okay and ship shape apart from an odd mutiny from Josie <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Look after yourself and good luck with the book <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Joe x <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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\u2014 Soldier, I shared the soldier\u2019s board and bed, And Joy has been a thing more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30152"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30152"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30157,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30152\/revisions\/30157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}