Alan Seeger Alan Seeger ( 22 June 1888 – 4 July 1916 ) was an American poet who fought and died in World War I during the Battle of the Somme serving in the French Foreign Legion . Seeger is the uncle of American folk singer Pete Seeger , and was a classmate of T . S . Eliot at Harvard . He is most well known for having authored the poem , " I Have a Rendezvous with Death " , a favorite of President John F . Kennedy . A statue modeled after Seeger is found on the monument honoring fallen Americans who volunteered for France during the war , located at the Place des États - Unis , Paris . Early life . Born in New York on June 22 , 1888 , Seeger moved with his family to Staten Island at the age of one and remained there until the age of 10 . In 1900 , his family moved to Mexico for two years , which influenced the imagery of some of his poetry . His brother Charles Seeger , a noted musicologist , was the father of the American folk singer , Pete Seeger . Seeger entered Harvard in 1906 after attending several elite preparatory schools , including Hackley School . Writing . At Harvard , he edited and wrote for the " Harvard Monthly " . After graduating in 1910 , he moved to Greenwich Village for two years , where he wrote poetry and enjoyed the life of a young bohemian . During that time , he attended soirées at the Mlles . Petitpas ' boardinghouse ( 319 West 29th Street ) , where the presiding genius was the artist and sage John Butler Yeats , father of the poet . Having moved to the Latin Quarter of Paris to continue his seemingly itinerant intellectual lifestyle , on August 24 , 1914 , Seeger joined the French Foreign Legion so that he could fight for the Allies in World War I ( the United States did not enter the war until 1917 ) . Death . He was killed in action at Belloy - en - Santerre on July 4 , 1916 , famously cheering on his fellow soldiers in a successful charge after being hit several times by machine gun fire . Poetry . One of his more famous poems , " I Have a Rendezvous with Death , " was published posthumously . Indeed , a recurrent theme in both his poetic works and his personal writings prior to falling in battle was his desire for his life to end gloriously at an early age . This particular poem , according to the JFK Library , " was one of John F . Kennedy ' s favorite poems and he often asked his wife ( Jacqueline ) to recite it . " Seeger ' s poetry was not published until 1917 , a year after his death . " Poems " , a collection of his works , was relatively unsuccessful , due , according to Eric Homberger , to its lofty idealism and language , qualities out of fashion in the early decades of the 20th century . " Poems " was reviewed in " The Egoist " , where the critic — T . S . Eliot , Seeger ' s classmate at Harvard — commented that , Seeger was serious about his work and spent pains over it . The work is well done , and so much out of date as to be almost a positive quality . It is high - flown , heavily decorated and solemn , but its solemnity is thorough going , not a mere literary formality . Alan Seeger , as one who knew him can attest , lived his whole life on this plane , with impeccable poetic dignity ; everything about him was in keeping . Memorial . On 4 July 1923 , the President of the French Council of State , Raymond Poincaré , dedicated a monument in the Place des États - Unis to the Americans who had volunteered to fight in World War I in the service of France . The monument , in the form of a bronze statue on a plinth , executed by Jean Boucher , had been financed through a public subscription . Boucher had used a photograph of Seeger as his inspiration , and Seeger ' s name can be found , among those of 23 others who had fallen in the ranks of the French Foreign Legion , on the back of the plinth . Also , on either side of the base of the statue , are two excerpts from Seeger ' s " " Ode in Memory of the American Volunteers Fallen for France " " , a poem written shortly before his death on 4 July 1916 . Seeger intended that his words should be read in Paris on 30 May of that year , at an observance of the American holiday , Decoration Day ( later known as Memorial Day ) : They did not pursue worldly rewards ; they wanted nothing more than to live without regret , brothers pledged to the honor implicit in living one ' s own life and dying one ' s own death . Hail , brothers ! Goodbye to you , the exalted dead ! To you , we owe two debts of gratitude forever : the glory of having died for France , and the homage due to you in our memories .