Again and again in the "Last Poems" -- notably in "Maktoob"
with its tribute to

The resignation and the calm
And wisdom of the East,

he returns to the note of fatalism. Here he has not only
the wisdom of the East but the logic of the West on his side.
Necessity is as incontrovertible to thought as it is incredible to feeling.
But in the potent illusion of free-will (if illusion it be) rests
all morality and all the admiration that we feel for good and evil deeds.
Not even at Alan Seeger's bidding can we quite persuade ourselves that,
when he took up arms for France, he was exercising no brave,
no generous choice, but was the conscript of Destiny.

William Archer.






Poems by Alan Seeger