Alan Seeger

Here you will find the Poem Sonnet IV of poet Alan Seeger

Sonnet IV

Up at his attic sill the South wind came 
And days of sun and storm but never peace. 
Along the town's tumultuous arteries 
He heard the heart-throbs of a sentient frame: 
Each night the whistles in the bay, the same 
Whirl of incessant wheels and clanging cars: 
For smoke that half obscured, the circling stars 
Burnt like his youth with but a sickly flame. 
Up to his attic came the city cries -- 
The throes with which her iron sinews heave -- 
And yet forever behind prison doors 
Welled in his heart and trembled in his eyes 
The light that hangs on desert hills at eve 
And tints the sea on solitary shores. . . .