Yesterday I visited the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston, Massachusetts. This marks the second Presidential library I’ve had the opportunity to visit, the first being the Lincon Library in Springfield, IL. While at the JFK Library I learned that  John F. Kennedy actually wanted to write and become an English Teacher.  However, after World War II Kennedy refocused his attention and ran for Congress.  (He later wound up writing a book, Profiles in Courage, 1955)

One of the most dramatic events in Kennedy’s early life was while he was serving in the Navy as a commander of a PT Boat in the Soloman Islands during World War II.    His ship was severely damaged and after 15 hours in the open sea without a life jacket he and his 11 men became stranded on an island.  He was later rescued after giving an inscribed coconut to a Native with instructions to the Navy base.  

Kennedy remarked that one of his favorite poems was “I have a Rendezvous with Death” by Alan Seeger (1888-1916).  Seeger’s poems were released a year after his death, coincidentally the same year Kennedy was born (1917).

I have a Rendezvous with Death
by Alan Seeger

I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air-
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.

It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath-
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.

God knows ’twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear…
But I’ve a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.

—

The biographical information from the JFK Library for Seeger is: 

Alan Seeger (1888-1916) was a young, early 20th century U.S. poet, a contemporary of T.S. Eliot, although very different in poetic style.  Seeger died at Belloy-en-Santerre on July 4, 1916 while serving in the French Foreign Legion.  “I Have a Rendezvous with Death” was one of John F. Kennedy’s favorite poems and he often asked his wife to recite it.