Poem by Alan Seeger

Broceliande

Broceliande! in the perilous beauty of silence and menacing shade,
Thou art set on the shores of the sea down the haze
  of horizons untravelled, unscanned.
Untroubled, untouched with the woes of this world
  are the moon-marshalled hosts that invade
                    Broceliande.

Only at dusk, when lavender clouds in the orient twilight disband,
Vanishing where all the blue afternoon they have drifted in solemn parade,
Sometimes a whisper comes down on the wind from the valleys of Fairyland ----

Sometimes an echo most mournful and faint like the horn of a huntsman strayed,
Faint and forlorn, half drowned in the murmur of foliage fitfully fanned,
Breathes in a burden of nameless regret till I startle,
  disturbed and affrayed:
                    Broceliande --
                    Broceliande --
                    Broceliande. . . .

1. Thirty Sonnets. 19. Vivien
2. Thirty Sonnets. 21. Virginibus Puerisque
3. Thirty Sonnets. 28. On the Cliffs, Newport
4. Thirty Sonnets. 7. Sonnet 7. To me, a pilgrim on that journey bound
5. Thirty Sonnets. 30. At the Tomb of Napoleon before the Elections in America--November, 1912

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