I
Deep in the sloping forest that surrounds
The head of a green valley that I know,
Spread the fair gardens and ancestral grounds
Of Bellinglise, the beautiful chateau.
Through shady groves and fields of unknown grass,
It was my job to come at dusk and see,
Filling a little pond’s untroubled glass,
Its antique towers and mouldering masonry.
Oh, should I fall, tomorrow, lay me here,
That o’er my tomb, with each reviving year,
Wood-flowers may blossom and the wood-doves croon;
And lovers by that unrecorded place,
Passing, may pause, and cling a little space,
Close-bosomed, at the rising of the moon.
II
Here where in happier times the huntsman’s horn
Echoing from far made sweet midsummer eves,
Now serried cannon thunder night and morn,
Tearing with iron the greenwood’s tender leaves.
Yet has sweet Spring no particle withdrawn
Of her old bounty; still the song-birds hail,
Even through our fusillade, delightful Dawn;
Even in our wire bloom lilies of the vale.
You who love flowers take these; their fragile bells
Have trembled with the shock of volleyed shells,
And in black nights when stealthy foes advance
They have been lit by the pale rockets’ glow
That o’er scarred fields and ancient towns laid low
Trace in white fire the brave frontiers of France.
On 13 May 1916 Alan Seeger wrote to his godmother
The chateau, in the grounds of which we are barracked, has a most beautiful name – Bellinglise. Isn’t it pretty? I think I shall have to write a sonnet to enclose it, as a ring is made express for a jewel. It is a wonderful old seventeenth century manor, surrounded by a lordly estate.
On 23 May 1916 he encloses these verses in a letter to his godmother
Here are the two sonnets I composed to while away the long hours of guard. Read the last paragraphs of Maud and see if you do not think they have a striking bearing on the present situation.