Page 44 - History of War - Issue 30-16

SOMME
1916 2016

IHAVE A RENDEZVOUS WITH DEATH
ALAN SEEGER

Written: c. 1916

I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms ill 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 i rst meadow- owers 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 aming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.

An American poet, Alan Seeger, was serving with the
French Foreign Legion, in the south of the Somme, when
he faithfully kept his appointment with death on 4 July
1916. Seeger’s battalion was part of the i rst wave to
take the village of Belloy-en-Santerre and, although the
attack was a successful one, he, alongside many others,
was lost to guni re. The order to charge came at 4pm
and Seeger was last seen running forwards, bayonet in
hand, towards the right of the targeted village, unaware
of the hidden German machine guns along the Belloy-
Estrées road. Later, the French Foreign Legion were
commended by the French Sixth Army for their victorious
actions of the day, in capturing the village from the
enemy and taking around 750 German prisoners.

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