Showing results by author "Alan Seeger" in All Categories

The poem expresses some of the heart wrenching universal truths and conflicting emotions anyone who goes to war must face: that you'd rather be home than at war and that death is there with you at all times, either waiting for you to die or waiting for you to kill.

Alan Seeger was born on 22nd June 1888 in New York. After attending several elite preparatory schools, he enrolled at Harvard in 1906, where he also edited and wrote for the Harvard Monthly. War’s looming dark shadow was to have a transformative effect on the young poet and on 24th August 24th, 1914, he joined the French Foreign Legion so he could fight for the Allies. On American Independence day, 4th July 1917, whilst urging on his fellow soldiers in a successful charge at Belloy-en-Santerrem he was hit several times by machine gun fire and died.