20th+Century

by Alan Seeger (1917)
 * I Have a Rendezvous with Death**

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.

The posted poem describes how a soldier meets the Death in person, and that dying is something natural and unavoidable. Not missing his "rendezvous" through not going to war for his nation, the soldier waits for death to come as for the arriving spring. My favorite line is "When Spring comes back with rustling shade and apple-blossoms fill the air" because it shows the contrast between a beautiful life and the cruel reality of dying, and things that are not as good as they appear. The chosen poem reflects the influence of war on literature because the author pictures war as a mighty person that reighns the world. Playing with the idea of dying, he creates pictures in his readers' minds, for example of the trees, spring, and the burning town. Seeger does not use the word "war", but readers automatically know what he is writing about.