Alan Seeger Memorial
Details:
Outside the front entrance of the cemetery in the parking area on the grass. Monument 1/2 meter tall concrete monument with a bronze plaque on the top of it.
This memorial honors Alan Seeger, an American poet from New York who joined the French Foreign Legion during World War I and died in France as a result. As the plaque indicates, the remains of Alan Seeger are located in Ossuary No. 1 inside the cemetery.
The plaque also contains the second half of the first stanza to Seeger's poem, "Bellinglise," in both French and English.
Monument Text:
ALAN SEEGER
Repose dans la Nécropole
de Lihons, Ossuaire Nº1,
parmi ses camarades
engagés volontaires
de la Légion Etrangère
Né le 22.6.1888 à New-York
mort pour la France
le 4.7.1916
à Belloy - en - Santerre
"...Oh, si je devais tomber demain, enterrer-moi ici,
afin qu'au-dessus de ma tombe à chaque année qui revit,
les fleurs des champs fruissent fleurir,
et les tourterelles s'aimer,
et les amoureux, dans cet endroit inconnu,
s'embrasser tendrement en regardant la lune qui luit."
English Translation:
ALAN SEEGER
Lies in the Necropolis
of Lihons, Ossuary No. 1,
among his comrades,
committed volunteers
of the Foreign Legion
Born 06/22/1888 in New York
died for France
on 04/07/1916
in Belloy - en - Santerre
"...Oh, should I fall to-morrow, lay me here,
that over my tomb, with each reviving year,
wood-flowers may blossom and the wood-doves croon;
and lovers by that unrecorded place,
passing, may pause, and cling a little space,
close-bosomed, at the rising of the moon."
