Joyce Kilmer
People best know "
Trees
" (1913), work of American poet Alfred Joyce Kilmer, whom World War I killed.
Works of this prolific journalist, literary critic, lecturer, and editor celebrated the common beauty of the natural world as well as his religious faith; people remember him most for this short poem, published in the collection
Trees and Other Poems
in 1914.
Despite his mostly unknown works, anthologies publish frequently a select few of his popular poems. Several contemporary critics of Kilmer and modern scholars disparaged his too simple, overly sentimental work and suggested his far too traditional, even archaic style.
Critics often compared Kilmer, considered the leading Catholic poet and lecturer of his generation in America to British contemporaries Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936) and Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953). Army of the United States deployed him to Europe at the time during the First World War as a sergeant in the 165th United States infantry regiment; the second battle of the Marne in 1918 killed Kilmer at 31 years of age.
“The fairy poet takes a sheetOf moonbeam, silver white;His ink is dew from daisies sweet,His pen a point of light.”
“I think that I shall never seeA poem lovely as a tree.A tree whose hungry mouth is pressedAgainst the earth's sweet flowing breast;A tree that looks at God all dayAnd lifts her leafy arms to pray;A tree that may in summer wearA nest of robins in her hair;Upon whose bosom snow has lain;Who intimately lives with rain.Poems are made by fools like me,But only God can make a tree.”
“The only reason a road is good as every wanderer knowsIs just because of the homes, the homes, the homes to which one goes”
“I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree. ”