I Have A Rendezvous With Death in  General   

I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air—
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.

It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath—
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.

God knows 'twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where Love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear...
But I've a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.

By Alan Seeger

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Other poems by Alan Seeger:

• A Message to America
• After an Epigram of Clement Marot
• An Ode to Antares
• Antinous
• Ariosto. Orlando Furioso, Canto X, 91-99
• At the Tomb of Napoleon
• Bellinglise
• Broceliande
• Champagne, 1914-15
• Coucy
• Do You Remember Once . . .
• El Extraviado
• Eudaemon
• Fragments
• I Have A Rendezvous With Death
• I Loved...
• Introduction and Conclusion of a Long Poem
• Juvenilia, An Ode to Natural Beauty
• Kyrenaikos
• La Nue
• Liebestod
• Lyonesse
• Maktoob
• Ode in Memory of the American Volunteers Fallen fo
• On a Theme in the Greek Anthology
• On the Cliffs, Newport
• Oneata
• Paris
• Rendezvous
• Resurgam
• Sonnet 01