Poem by Alan Seeger

Thirty Sonnets. 17. Kyrenaikos

LAY me where soft Cyrene rambles down
In grove and garden to the sapphire sea;
Twine yellow roses for the drinker's crown;
Let music reach and fair heads circle me,
Watching blue ocean where the white sails steer
Fruit-laden forth or with the wares and news
Of merchant cities seek our harbors here,
Careless how Corinth fares, how Syracuse;
But here, with love and sleep in her caress,
Warm night shall sink and utterly persuade
The gentle doctrine Aristippus bare, --
Night-winds, and one whose white youth's loveliness,
In a flowered balcony beside me laid,
Dreams, with the starlight on her fragrant hair.

1. Thirty Sonnets. 5. Sonnet 5. A tide of beauty with returning May
2. The Sultan's Palace
3. Thirty Sonnets. 13. Sonnet 13. I fancied, while you stood conversing there
4. Sonnet 1. Sidney, in whom the heyday of romance
5. Thirty Sonnets. 8. Sonnet 8. Oft as by chance, a little while apart

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