Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, LAST POEMS: SONNET 10, by ALAN SEEGER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

LAST POEMS: SONNET 10, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: I have sought happiness, but it has been
Last Line: Amid the clash of arms I was at peace.
Subject(s): Soldiers' Writings; World War I; First World War


I have sought Happiness, but it has been
A lovely rainbow, baffling all pursuit,
And tasted Pleasure, but it was a fruit
More fair of outward hue than sweet within.
Renouncing both, a flake in the ferment
Of battling hosts that conquer or recoil,
There only, chastened by fatigue and toil,
I knew what came the nearest to content.
For there at least my troubled flesh was free
From the gadfly Desire that plagued it so;
Discord and Strife were what I used to know,
Heartaches, deception, murderous jealousy;
By War transported far from all of these,
Amid the clash of arms I was at peace.






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