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16 Sep 08 - 06:38 PM (#2442541) Subject: Poem w/ connection to folk singer From: John on the Sunset Coast This poem, nearly 100 years old, has connection to a folk music legend. If you know the poet, you'll know the legend. What is the connection? Also, this poem is mentioned in which movie, a political thriller, from about fifteen years ago? "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." Answers, if there are responses, in a couple of days. JotSC |
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16 Sep 08 - 06:42 PM (#2442543) Subject: RE: Poem w/ connection to folk singer From: Cool Beans The poet is Alan Seeger, Pete Seeger's uncle (Charles Seeger's brother). Don't know the movie, though. |
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16 Sep 08 - 07:14 PM (#2442573) Subject: RE: Poem w/ connection to folk singer From: John on the Sunset Coast Damn! That was quick! But at least you left something. :>/ |
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16 Sep 08 - 09:55 PM (#2442672) Subject: RE: Poem w/ connection to folk singer From: Ref The film is "In The Line Of Fire" in which the line is quoted by John Malkovich. The legend (true) is that the poem wasn't published until after Seeger's death in battle. He was serving in the Foreign Legion, and died cheering on his comrades after he'd been mortally wounded. |
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17 Sep 08 - 12:54 AM (#2442753) Subject: RE: Poem w/ connection to folk singer From: John on the Sunset Coast Ref, you got the second part. Seeger died in 1916, his poems collected and published postumously in 1917. WWI was a tough on poets. Joyce Kilmer ("Trees") also was killed in battle. Maybe a few others. |
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17 Sep 08 - 11:00 AM (#2443083) Subject: RE: Poem w/ connection to folk singer From: Santa Wilfred Owen Rupert Brooke |
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17 Sep 08 - 09:23 PM (#2443606) Subject: RE: Poem w/ connection to folk singer From: Ref Sad times, and more sadly forgotten. Hundreds of thousands of English, French, German, and, yes, Americans dead for no good reason at all but the death twitches of the old empires. |
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18 Sep 08 - 01:07 AM (#2443730) Subject: RE: Poem w/ connection to folk singer From: Rowan From memory, Rupert Brooke died while 'in uniform' but not 'in battle', apparently from an infected mosquito bite. Not that it matters much; he still ended up dead. And many other poets were 'changed' by WWI, even if they survived beyond 1918; Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves are two that come to mind. |
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18 Sep 08 - 08:24 AM (#2443932) Subject: RE: Poem w/ connection to folk singer From: GUEST,Owlett Edward Thomas |
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18 Sep 08 - 12:07 PM (#2444094) Subject: RE: Poem w/ connection to folk singer From: Ythanside John Masefield and Robert William Service, both Red Cross men who served during WW1. |