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Title: Joyce Kilmer, Volume I (of 2)
Poems, Essays and Letters in Two Volumes
Author: Joyce Kilmer
Editor: Robert Cortes Holliday
Release Date: June 20, 2021 [eBook #65652]
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JOYCE KILMER
POEMS, ESSAYS
AND LETTERS
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOLUME ONE: MEMOIR AND POEMS
© Underwood and Underwood
JOYCE KILMER, AGE 30
LAST CIVILIAN PORTRAIT
JOYCE KILMER
EDITED WITH A MEMOIR
BY ROBERT CORTES HOLLIDAY
VOLUME ONE
MEMOIR AND POEMS
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
Copyright, 1914, 1917, 1918
By George H. Doran Company
Printed in the United States of America
TO THE MEMORY OF
JOYCE KILMER
Many persons have contributed exceedingly
valuable service to the preparation of these volumes.
Credit has been gratefully acknowledged, wherever
feasible, in the course of the text. To make
anything like a full record, however, of the names
of that remarkable society, the ardent and devoted
friends of Joyce Kilmer, would require a chapter.
Though particular reference should be made in this
place to the invaluable assistance of: Kilmer’s life-long
friend and lawyer, Louis Bevier, Jr.; his especial
friend, Thomas Walsh; and his office associate,
John Bunker.
Permission has been most cordially granted by
the editors of the following magazines for the reprinting
of the poems from France: Scribner’s
Magazine, Good Housekeeping, The Saturday
Evening Post, America, and The Bookman. Essays
and miscellaneous pieces have been gathered,
with the warm approval of the editors of these publications,
from these sources: The Bookman, The
New York Times Sunday Magazine, The Bellman,
The Catholic World, Poetry: A Magazine of Verse,viii
he Smart Set, Munsey’s Magazine and Puck—a
curiously assorted company, highly expressive of
the catholicity of the mind these pages reflect.
The article on Hilaire Belloc, originally one of
Kilmer’s lectures, was first printed in the American
edition of Belloc’s “Verses.” The early poems have
been chosen from Kilmer’s first book, “A Summer
of Love,” now out of print, rights to which are held
by Mrs. Aline Kilmer. Poems not otherwise credited
have been reprinted from the volumes already
published by George H. Doran Company.
R. C. H.
New York, 1918.
|
PAGE |
Memoir |
17 |
POEMS FROM FRANCE |
Rouge Bouquet |
105 |
The Peacemaker |
108 |
Prayer of a Soldier in France |
109 |
When the Sixty-ninth Comes Back |
110 |
Mirage du Cantonment |
113 |
POEMS AT HOME |
Wartime Christmas |
117 |
Main Street |
118 |
Roofs |
120 |
The Snowman in the Yard |
122 |
A Blue Valentine |
124 |
Houses |
127 |
In Memory |
128 |
Apology |
131 |
The Proud Poet |
133 |
Lionel Johnson |
137 |
Father Gerard Hopkins, S.J. |
138 |
Gates and Doors |
139 |
The Robe of Christ |
142 |
The Singing Girl |
145 |
The Annunciation |
146 |
Roses |
147 |
The Visitation |
149 |
Multiplication |
150 |
Thanksgiving |
152 |
The Thorn |
153x |
The Big Top |
154 |
Mid-ocean in War-time |
157 |
Queen Elizabeth Speaks |
158 |
In Memory of Rupert Brooke |
159 |
The New School |
160 |
Easter Week |
163 |
The Cathedral of Rheims |
165 |
Kings |
169 |
The White Ships and the Red |
170 |
The Twelve-Forty-Five |
174 |
Pennies |
178 |
Trees |
180 |
Stars |
181 |
Old Poets |
183 |
Delicatessen |
185 |
Servant Girl and Grocer’s Boy |
190 |
Wealth |
192 |
Martin |
193 |
The Apartment House |
194 |
As Winds That Blow Against a Star |
196 |
St. Laurence |
197 |
To a Young Poet Who Killed Himself |
198 |
Memorial Day |
200 |
The Rosary |
201 |
Vision |
202 |
To Certain Poets |
203 |
Love’s Lantern |
205 |
St. Alexis |
206 |
Folly |
208 |
Madness |
210 |
Poets |
211 |
Citizen of the World |
212xi |
To a Blackbird and His Mate Who Died in the Spring |
213 |
The Fourth Shepherd |
215 |
Easter |
218 |
Mount Houvenkopf |
219 |
The House with Nobody in It |
220 |
Dave Lilly |
223 |
Alarm Clocks |
226 |
Waverley |
227 |
EARLY POEMS |
In a Book-shop |
231 |
Slender Your Hands |
232 |
Sleep Song |
233 |
White Bird of Love |
234 |
Transfiguration |
236 |
Ballade of My Lady’s Beauty |
237 |
For a Birthday |
239 |
Wayfarers |
242 |
Princess Ballade |
244 |
Lullaby for a Baby Fairy |
246 |
A Dead Poet |
248 |
The Mad Fiddler |
249 |
The Grass in Madison Square |
251 |
Said the Rose |
252 |
Metamorphosis |
254 |
For a Child |
255 |
The Clouded Sun (To A. S.) |
256 |
The Poet’s Epitaph |
259 |
Beauty’s Hair |
260 |
The Way of Love |
262 |
Chevely Crossing |
267 |
The Other Lover |
270 |
Joyce Kilmer, Age 30 |
Frontispiece |
|
PAGE |
Fac-simile of autograph manuscript of “The Peacemaker” |
108 |
Joyce Kilmer, Age 21 |
240 |
It is the felicity of these pages that they cannot
be dull. It is their merit, peculiar in such a
memoir, that they cannot be sad. It is their novelty
that they can be restricted in appeal only by the
varieties of the human species. It is their good
fortune that they can be extraordinarily frank. It
is their virtue that they cannot fail to do unmeasurable
good. And it is their luck to abide many days.
With their subject how could it be otherwise?
They make not a wreath, but a chronicle, and in
their assembled facts tell a bright chapter in the history
of our time. If there is one word which more
than any other should be linked with the name of
this gallant figure now claimed (and rightly) by so
many elements of the nation, that word certainly is
“American.” A character and a career so racy,
typical of all that everybody likes to believe that at
our best we are, can hardly be matched, I think, outside
of stories.
I
Joyce Kilmer was reported in the papers as having
said, just before he sailed for France, that he
was “half Irish,” and that was why he belonged with18
the boys of the Sixty-ninth. His birth was not exactly
eloquent of this fact. Though, indeed, he was,
as will appear, a much more ardent Irishman than
many an Irishman born—that is, in the sense of
keenly savouring those things which are fine in the
Irish character, and with characteristic gusto feeling
within himself an affinity with them. Later, in
a letter from France to his wife, he was more explicit
on this point:
As to the matter of my own blood (you mentioned
this in a previous letter) I did indeed tell a
good friend of mine who edits the book-review page
of a Chicago paper that I was “half Irish.” But I
have never been a mathematician. The point I
wished to make was that a large percentage—which
I have a perfect right to call half—of my ancestry
was Irish. For proof of this, you have only to refer
to the volumes containing the histories of my mother’s
and my father’s families. Of course I am
American, but one cannot be pure American in
blood unless one is an Indian. And I have the good
fortune to be able to claim, largely because of the
wise matrimonial selections of my progenitors on
both sides, Irish blood. And don’t let anyone publish
a statement contrary to this.
He also, in a letter from France, quoted with
much relish the remark of Father Francis P. Duffy19
that he was “half German and half human.”
English and Scotch strains made up another half
or three quarters. The English goes straight back
to one Thomas Kilburne, church warden at Wooddilton,
near Newmarket, in Cambridgeshire, who
came to Connecticut in 1638. The “e” was lost
apparently in Massachusetts, and the word became,
as in his mother’s maiden name, Kilburn.
Soldier blood, too, flowed in his veins—though it
is likely that this fact for the first time occurred to
him, if at all, when his nature rose white-hot to
arms. He was, so to say, a Colonial Dame on both
sides, as members of both his father’s and his mother’s
family fought in the American Revolution; and
members of his father’s family in the French and
Indian wars.
Alfred Joyce Kilmer (as he was christened) was
born at New Brunswick, New Jersey, December 6,
1886, son of Annie Kilburn and Frederick Kilmer.
Though he seems always to have been, in familiar
address and allusion, called Joyce, the Alfred did
not disappear from his address and signature until
he began, as more or less of a professional writer,
to publish his work, when it went the way of the
Newton in Mr. Tarkington’s name, and the Enoch
in Mr. Bennett’s. Then “Joyce Kilmer” acquired a20
fine humorous disdain for what he regarded as the
florid note in literary signatures of three words (or,
worse still to his mind, the A. Joyce kind of thing);
and he enjoyed handing down, with much relish of
the final and judicial character of his utterance, the
opinion that the proper sort of a trademark, so to
say, for success in letters was something short,
pointed, easy to say and to remember, such as Rudyard
Kipling, Mark Twain, O. Henry, Joseph
Conrad, and so on through illustrations carried, at
length, to intentionally infuriating numbers.
As a small boy, Kilmer is described by those who
knew him then as the “funniest” small boy they
ever saw, by which is meant, apparently, that he was
an odd spectacle. And this, of course, is so altogether
in line with literary tradition that it would
have been odd if he had not been an oddity in the
way of a spectacle. He wore queer clothes, it seems,
ordinary stockings with bicycle breeches, and that
sort of thing. He didn’t altogether fit in somehow,
couldn’t find himself, was somewhat of an outsider
among the juvenile clans; he was required to fight
other boys a good deal; he evidenced a pronounced
inability to comprehend anything at all of arithmetic;
and somewhere between eight and twelve (so
the report goes) he contracted a violent passion for21
a lady, of about thirty-five, who was his teacher at
school; a passion which endured for a considerable
time, and became a hilarious legend among the
youth about him of jocose humour.
It is told that at “Prep” school, when this goal
seemed rather unlikely of his attainment, he made
up his mind to stand at the head of his class; and
with something like the later Kilmerian exercise of
will he accomplished his purpose.
Kilmer was graduated from Rutgers College in
1904, and received his A. B. from Columbia in 1906.
His University life seems to have been, in outward
effect, fairly normal. There is no ready evidence
that he “shone” particularly, and none that he failed
to “shine.” He was not deported by the authorities,
and he was not unanimously hailed the idol of his
classmates. He became a member of Delta Upsilon
fraternity: and he was, of course, active in college
journalism. Then as always he appears to have
been zestful in living well, to have counted sufficient
to the day the excellence thereof, and to have been
too warm with life to be calculating in expenditures.
He retained in the years that followed—and it
seems to have been the college memory he retained
most distinctly—a humorous recollection of his consuming
his allowance on an abundance of rich22
viands during the first few days of each month, and
being reduced to the necessity of living precariously
on a meagre ration of crackers and sandwiches
thereafter—until next income day.
Characteristic of the vehement manner in which
he went after life, as a Sophomore Kilmer became
engaged to Miss Aline Murray, of New Jersey, a
step-daughter of Henry Mills Alden, editor of
Harper’s Magazine. Upon leaving Columbia he
took up the business of making a living in the way
of an elder American intellectual tradition, by
teaching school in a (more or less) rural community.
He returned to New Jersey and began his career as
instructor of Latin at Morristown High School.
So slight a lad he was, even several years after this
time, that it is difficult to picture him in the disciplinary
adventures of the classic figure of this calling.
His problems at Morristown doubtless were
dissimilar to those of his early, Hoosier, prototype.
He married and became a householder. His son,
Kenton, was born. In religion he had been bred an
Episcopalian, and during this period in New Jersey
(it is told) he acted as a lay reader in this church.
He soon concluded, apparently, that pedagogy
was, so to say, no life for a boy. At the conclusion
of a year’s teaching he tore up the roots he had23
planted, and, together with the young lady he had
married, and the son born to them, and with a few
youthful poems in his pocket, he advanced upon the
metropolis, even in the classic way, on the ancient
quest of conscious talent.
The rapidity and brilliance of Joyce Kilmer’s
success has altogether obscured his very democratic
beginnings. As his initial occupation in New York,
he obtained, by a lucky chance, employment as
editor of a journal for horsemen, though of horses
he had no particular knowledge—to be exact, no
such knowledge whatever. Here finding little to
do, and discovering one day in a desk drawer a
bulky manuscript, he decided—as he was editor—to
edit it. This, apparently, he did with youthful energy.
The little job he mentioned with some satisfaction
to his employer, a fine portly sportsman
with a crimson face and an irascible temper. The
young editor explained that the manuscript evidently
had been written by a man familiar with
horses, but one apparently innocent of the art of
literary composition. “Young man,” bellowed his
employer, “I would have you understand I have
been through the best veterinary college in the
world, and I have been a veterinary myself for over
forty years.” His wife, he added, was his amanuensis,24
and he guessed she knew something about
writing. The editorship came to an abrupt termination.
Then followed a brief sojourn, at a salary of (I
think) eight dollars a week, as retail salesman in the
book store of Charles Scribner’s Sons, a dignity
which the young littérateur wore with humorous
dignity for exactly two weeks. A distinct mental
impression of him of this time presents him as decidedly
like an Eton boy in general effect, and it seems
that a large white collar and a small-size high hat
should have gone with him to make the picture quite
right. One who met him then felt at once a gracious,
slightly courtly, young presence. He gave
forth an aroma of excellent, gentlemanly manners.
He frequently pronounced, as an indication that he
had not heard you clearly, the word “Pardon?”—with
a slight forward inclination of his head, which,
altogether, was adorable. His smile, never far
away, when it came was winning, charming. It
broke like spring sunshine, it was so fresh and warm
and clear. And there was noticeable then in his eyes
a light, a quiet glow which marked him as a spirit
not to be forgotten. So tenderly boyish was he in
effect that his confreres among the book clerks accepted
with difficulty the story that he was married.25
When it was told that he had a son they gasped their
incredulity. And when one day this extraordinary
elfin sprite remarked that at the time of his honeymoon
he had had a beard they felt (I remember)
that the world was without power to astonish them
further.
As a retail salesman, however, this exceedingly
interesting young man did not make a high mark.
One’s general impression of him “on the floor” is a
picture of a happy student, standing, entranced,
frequently with his back to the door (which theoretically
he should have been watching for incoming
customers), day after day engrossed in perusing a
rare edition of “Madame Bovary.” One sensational
feat of business he did as a clerk perform. Misreading,
in his newness to these hieroglyphics, the
cypher in which in stores the prices of books are
marked on the fly leaves of the volumes, he sold to a
lady a hundred-and-fifty-dollar book for a dollar
and a half. This transaction being what is termed a
“charge sale,” not a “cash sale,” and amid some excitement
the matter being immediately rectified, disaster
for the amateur salesman was averted.
At Scribner’s a close friendship was, almost at
once, formed between the youthful poet and another
then unpublished writer acting at that time in the26
same capacity of clerk—a friendship which was
never diminished by the numerous shiftings of Kilmer’s
fields of activity, the multitudinous, diverse
and ardent interests which he acquired in an ever-mounting
measure, and the steady addition of numberless
friends of all classes who eagerly yielded him
their devotion. It was rather a friendship which
was continually cemented by increasing and closer
bonds. It was a part of Kilmer’s spirit to make his
first friend in his literary life a sharer as far as was
possible in each new success of his own. One among
many, innumerable, instances of this was his contriving,
by his influence with the editor (at that time
another intimate, Louis H. Wetmore), to work his
friend into a position somewhat rivaling his own at
the period (1912–1913) when he was the bright and
shining star reviewer for the New York Times Review
of Books. The regular Tuesday lunching together
of these two friends when their offices were
widely separated became, at least in their own
fancy, an American literary institution. The two
were united in all the symbols of affection between
men. And at seasons of rejoicing and adversity the
Kilmer house was to his friend as his own. It is to
this one who among all of Joyce Kilmer’s friends
owes him the greatest debt of friendship has come27
the supreme trust of writing, within the power of his
many and conscious limitations, this Memoir, and
editing these volumes.
Dropping the very small bird which he held in his
hand in the way of a secure salary, the spectacular
bookseller, somewhat to twist the figure, plunged
again into uncharted seas, and became a lexicographer,
as an editorial assistant in the work of preparing
a new edition of the Standard Dictionary.
He blithely began his Johnsonian labours by defining
ordinary words assigned to him, at a pay of five
cents for each word defined. This is a very different
thing indeed from receiving a rate of five cents
a word for writing. It is a task at which you can
obtain an average of perhaps ten or twelve dollars
a week, though some weeks “stickers” will hold you
back. It soon became apparent, evidently, that it
was advisable to put this very capable pieceworker
on a salary; and he was rapidly promoted, with corresponding
increases in remuneration (reaching an
amount of something like four times his initial earnings),
to more advanced phases of the work: research
into dates of birth (involving correspondence
with living celebrities); research into the inception
of inventions (as, for example, the introduction of
the barrier into horse racing); together with the28
defining of words of contemporary origin, in, for instance,
the nomenclature of aviation. In this last
mentioned department, it was his office to call upon
authorities, such as the Wright brothers, and upon
presentation of his credentials to receive precise information.
He interviewed famous tobacco importers,
and coffee merchants; compiled in the New
York Public Library material about fans; unearthed
for use as an illustration a picture of a
strange bird; or was assigned to collect for this purpose
designs of ancient mouldings.
If lexicography was Kilmer’s venerable occupation,
by political faith he was at the time, this very
young, young man, a socialist. He subscribed for
and frequently contributed to the Call newspaper.
And the height of his effervescence was in addressing
meetings of the proletariat. He was, it must
be said, a burning “young radical.” He frequented,
to some extent, a club of that name. And
with a joyous consciousness of being in the character
of his surroundings he ate meals at the Rand
School of Social Science. He rapidly acquired
a wonderful string of queer acquaintances, in
whose idiosyncrasies he took immense delight.
Some, not of the persuasion, fancied that as an adherent
of the socialist party he was merely enamoured29
of an intellectual idea. At any rate, whenever
in conversation he spoke of socialism, as he
frequently did, his graceful, amiable young features
assumed a very firm and earnest aspect.
Exactly the point of transition, if there was any
decided point, I cannot recall, but from the proletariat
he passed to the literati. A “man of letters” became
a great word with him. And he looked rather
proudly about as he said it, as a Scot might speak
of the doughty deeds of the Scotch. He was wont
to refer, too, to the “intellectual aristocracy.” His
luncheon engagements were now mostly with this
order of humanity, and his anecdotes featured such
figures as Richard Le Gallienne and Bliss Carman—men
whose personalities delighted his heart beyond
measure.
How absurdly juvenile he looked. But you would
have noted, as you observed him, that he had a very
fine head, something like that of Arthur Symons
(without the moustache), I thought; or, according
to Mr. Le Gallienne’s sympathetic picture in The
Bookman: “Though the resemblance was perhaps
only a spiritual expression, his then thin, austere
young face, with those strangely strong and gentle
eyes (eyes that seemed to have an independent,
dominating existence), reminded me of Lionel30
Johnson, for whom he had already a great admiration,
and whose religion he was afterwards to embrace.”
Or, again, he seemed as if he might be a
comely youth out of ancient Greece. I think that
what I mean is that he was so unlike all other young
men anyone had ever seen walking about, so much
brighter and purer, or some indescribable thing,
that he did not seem altogether real. A feeling
which I think was shared by many, and which I
have never quite been able to make articulate, Mr.
Le Gallienne has most happily expressed with his
own easy charm; that is the “hint of destiny” in this
“very concentrated, intense young presence—masculine
intense, not feminine:”
We have all met young people who give us that—beautiful,
brilliant, lovely natured, so superabundant
in all their qualities (and particularly perhaps
in some quality of emanating light)—as to make
them suggest the supernatural, and touched, too,
with the finger of a moonlight that has written
“fated” upon their brows. Probably our feeling is
nothing more mysterious than our realisation that
temperaments so vital and intense must inevitably
tempt richer and swifter fates than those less wild
winged.
Above all, this young gentleman was the portrait
of a poet, even (in those days) of the type of literary31
sophistication which is (or was) called decadent!
There was about him a perceptible aroma of
literary self-consciousness. He had begun to contribute
to magazines and newspapers the verses
which he soon gathered into a first volume, “A
Summer of Love” (an “author’s book,” as the trade
term has it), verses patently derivative in character
(as whose early verses are not?), showing the influences
of various masters.
He had already become a bit of a celebrity, arriving
at twenty-five in Who’s Who. In conversation
he spoke with striking fluency and precision,
and a rather amusing effect of authority; all of
which, together with a ready command, rather incongruous
for his years, of very apt words little employed
in speech, gave a general impression, I
fancy, of something of an infant prodigy. He
wrote in a letter of this time of the poems of Coventry
Patmore:
I have come to regard them with intense admiration.
Have you read them? Patmore seems to me
to be a greater poet than Francis Thompson. (Kilmer,
had by the way, just given a lecture at Columbia
University on Francis Thompson.) He has
not the rich vocabulary, the decorative erudition,
the Shelleyan enthusiasm, which distinguish the
“Sister Songs” and the “Hound of Heaven,” but32
he has a classical simplicity, a restraint and sincerity
which make his poems satisfying. Some of his
shorter poems, such as “Alexander and Lycon” and
“The Toys,” approach Landor in their Greek economy.
Of course, the “Angel in the House,” and
many other of his poems, are marred by Tennysonian
influences. But the “Unknown Eros” is a work
of stupendous beauty. It is certainly supreme
among modern religious poems. That part of it
devoted to Eros and Psyche is remarkably daring
and remarkably fine. Psyche symbolizes the soul,
and Eros the love of God. Their amour is described
with realistic minuteness, even with humorous
flippancy, and yet the whole poem is alive with
religious feeling.
The finding of Patmore, by the way, was what
might be called a finger-post in Kilmer’s life. The
fortunate introduction was performed by, it is my
impression, Kilmer’s friend Thomas Walsh.
If in cold print to-day there is a slightly preposterous
didactic quality in these remarks of this
youthful character, it should be instantly noted as
a tribute to the charm that was his that in the presence
of so much handsomeness and grace, combined
with so much flexibility of mind and agile humour,
even this was an engaging thing.
There was to Kilmer nothing whatever dry-as-dust33
about the erudite business of lexicography;
instead his impressionable nature found among his
co-workers a rich, a colourful, an exciting school of
humanity. He glowed continually with affectionate
amusement at the motley band of literary adventurers,
intellectual soldiers of fortune, who apparently
were his colleagues. One, the most motley
perhaps of all (the long cherished dream of whose
ancient bachelor life it was one day to write a popular
song), touched, for the first time, I think, the
deepest spring of his song—his profound and wide-ranging
humanity.
Some people ask: “What cruel chance
Made Martin’s life so sad a story?”
Martin? Why, he exhaled romance,
And wore an overcoat of glory.
II
And then, lo! the aesthete became a churchman.
After a couple of years or so of lexicographic employment,
work on the dictionary was completed,
and Kilmer entered what, with immense gusto, he
described as “religious journalism.” He became
literary editor of The Churchman.
He had completed a very thorough course in uptown
New York apartment house life (living, I34
think, in rapid succession in some half dozen specimens
of “the great stone box cruelly displayed
severe against the pleasant arc of sky”); and now
removing to the suburban village of Mahwah, New
Jersey, in the Ramapo foothills, he entered upon his
career as one of the world’s most accomplished commuters.
He used to say, with a spacious gesture of
the arm and a haughty inflation of the chest, that it
was no life at all, no life at all, for a man not to
swing around an orbit of at least sixty miles a day
between his office and his home. His home, even so!
I never have seen a vagabond who really liked to roam
All up and down the streets of the world and not to have a home.
What more exhilarating experience than the
owning of a home! And one paid one’s installments
on the building loan with the fine pride of a man
exercising a noble prerogative. Yes, he often
walked to Suffern along the Erie track, and meditated
on “what a house should do, a house that has
sheltered life,”
That has put its loving wooden arms around a man and his wife,
A house that has echoed a baby’s laugh and held up his stumbling feet.
35
As became a churchman, he began to hold forth to
his companion on the train to and from the city on
the fascinations of the Anglican poets. Either his
enthusiasm for the subject resulted in a series of
articles on the theme, or an assignment for such a
series of articles resulted in his enthusiasm, I don’t
know which. The significant point is that it was
just as like to have been either way about. “Passon
Hawker”—Robert Stephen Hawker—Vicar of
Morwenstow, a coast life-guard in a cassock—who
can recite off hand the deeds of his piety and his
valour? Well, on the Erie smoker he became one of
the most romantic figures of story. Robert Herrick,
in a manner of speaking, went home many a
night on the Twelve-Forty-Five (Robert Herrick,
that is, with his “Unbaptized Rhimes” left out),
and Bishop Coxe returned on the Seven-Fifty-Six
in the morning.
Kilmer had already done a few book reviews for
The Nation and for the New York Times; but at
The Churchman he acquired such a proficiency at
this exercise that he was able, jocularly, to regard
Arnold Bennett, as a literary journalist, as a “mere
amateur.” The real reward of “religious journalism,”
however, it soon developed, was the opportunity
of writing a feature which the secular might36
call an editorial, but the proper name of which this
editor pronounced, in the tone and with the manner
of one who was consciously engaged in something
grand, gloomy and peculiar, as a “meditation.”
The real meditations of Joyce Kilmer, however,
were not “meditations” so called, and partook in no
wise of the nature of editorials. He had been, in the
main, a graceful troubadour who thrummed pleasant
things to his lady-love, and had a bright eye to
his singing robes. He had thought it rather fine,
too, that refrain in imitation of Richepin:
May booze be plenty, bulls be few,
The poet is the beggars’ king.
He had even been much taken, artistically, with the
thought of absinthe:
O little green god in your crystal shrine,
Your heavenly dream-shower shed!
It was when his business took him near to God,
when his exploring spirit, upon a peak in Darien,
beheld that:
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree,
that he began to be a poet. “Trees,” which more
than all the rest he had written put together made37
his reputation, appeared in Poetry. A Magazine of
Verse in August, 1913.
At about this period it was that he was altogether
born again. Then, doubtless in castigatory reaction
against his own aesthetic and “decadent” wild oats,
entered into his fibre that sovereign disdain for the
intellectual flub-dub which later gave such a delightful
note of “horse-sense” to all his humorous
thought—the Johnsonian sting (“and don’t you
think you were an ass?”) which found its earliest
biting expression in the verses “To a Young Poet
Who Killed Himself.”
“I’ve been leading a rather active life, for several
days,” was with a gay salute of the hand, a frequent
Kilmerian remark. In 1912 the direction of
the New York Times Review of Books fell into the
hands of a high-spirited young man, a Max-Beerbohmian
character, with a decided taste for gaiety in
reviews, Mr. Wetmore, who conducted that organ
through what is known in New York journalistic
tradition as its “meteoric period.” Mr. Wetmore’s
wit perceived in Kilmer his happiest rocket. Not
only given his head but egged on by his editor to
strive for sublime heights of fantasy, this fairly unknown
contributor shot in a series of reviews which
for readability was, the applause now indicated, an38
altogether new thing in the book pages of an American
newspaper. “This is a bad book, a very bad
book, indeed,” so ran the style. “It is bad because
it makes this reviewer feel old and fat and bald.”
If, together with their humorous assumption of a
jovial cocksureness of manner, the literary judgments
expressed were, of necessity, snap-shot judgments,
there was nothing snap-shot nor assumed
about a certain quality in them which in general
effect was the most striking of all, namely, the reflection
in a very positive way of a radiantly clean
and wholesome young nature, abounding in mental
and spiritual health.
As one of the general prime movers in, and for a
number of years Corresponding Secretary of The
Poetry Society of America, Kilmer engaged on the
side in activities which for many another would have
been in themselves almost a whole job. A fervent
Dickensonian, he was for a long period president
and (one felt) the animating principle of the American
Dickens Fellowship. He accumulated offices
to such an extent that I am doubtful if anyone but
himself knew exactly how many employments he
had altogether, or at any one moment. He conducted
the Poetry department of The Literary Digest
for something like nine years, an obligation39
which he continued to fulfill even from Camp Mills,
Long Island, to the time when he sailed for France.
For a time he conducted a similar department in
Current Literature, and also did a quarterly article
on poetry for, I think, the Review of Reviews.
Among his earlier essays in the lecture field was a
paper on “The Drama as an Instrument of Sex
Education,” read before a regular meeting of the
Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis held
at the New York Academy of Medicine, in December,
1913. The society with the playful name,
I recollect, got seriously interested in the matter of
sex education as then expounded. Their views on
the drama in this connection were enlarged by
acquisition of the idea that though “‘The Great
Love’ is, in my opinion, one of the most skilfully
constructed plays presented on the New York stage
for many a year, I am quite serious in saying that as
a factor in sex education, it is a thousand times inferior
to ‘Bertha the Beautiful Cloak Model.’”
As Kilmer was always decidedly what is termed
a ready writer, what I should attempt to describe
as a natural writer (a startling exception to the rule
that easy writing makes hard reading), so he appeared
to have the gift of speaking readily in public.
On frequent occasions, at any rate in his early talks,40
he neglected altogether to prepare any outline beforehand,
and even sometimes to choose a subject.
Every now and then, I have known him repeatedly
to say to his companion at dinner, without, however,
any trace at all of nervousness: “Now, look here:
Put your mind on this. Stop all that gossip. Tell
me what I’m to talk about. I have to begin” (looking
at his watch) “in twenty-five minutes.”
He was particularly active in the affairs of the
Authors’ Club, and was a member of the Vagabonds,
the Columbia University Club and the
Alianza Puertorriguena. In 1913 he ceased, officially,
to be a churchman. For a brief period he
contemplated the prospect of a professorship, lecturing
on English Literature at the University of
the South, Sewanee, Tennessee. Then, to his great
delight, he became a newspaper man—as he continually
put it, with much relish in the part, “a hard
newspaper man.” He became a special writer for
the New York Times Sunday Magazine. I am sure
he saw himself in fancy as one of those weather-beaten
characters bred in the old-time newspaper
school of booze, profanity and hard knocks, his only
text-book the police-court blotter and the moulder
of his youth a particularly brutal night city-editor.
He maintained, with humorous arrogance against41
opposing argument, the thesis that every great
writer had got his “training” as a newspaper man.
He delighted to point, as illustrations of this, to
Dickens, to Thackeray, and to a lot more, who, in
any strict sense of the word, were not “newspaper
men” at all. Hard pressed, he even stood ready to
make some such hilariously sweeping assertion as
that George Eliot, Shakespeare, Tennyson and
Robert Browning were, properly perceived, “newspaper
men.”
At any rate, this hard newspaper man had to
begin with a comical equipment for his task: he
would never learn to typewrite and he knew nothing
of shorthand. Or rather, he was remarkably well
equipped, as one of the outstanding traits of his
character was the fearless zest with which, so to say,
he took the hurdles of life, and a peculiar faculty in
triumphing over such obstacles as his own limitations.
He rapidly invented a curious system of
abbreviations and marks to remind him of points,
which served him as an interviewer as effectively as
any knowledge of stenography could have done.
He energetically entered upon his occupation as a
feature writer with the customary themes of the
“Sunday story.” He interviewed, figuratively
speaking, the man who had discovered the missing42
link, and he got from the latest inventor of perpetual
motion all the arresting details of his machine.
And a lively part of the early Sunday morning
ritual at his home was the advance calculating with
a tape measure of the week’s income from space
writing.
It was later that he created his own highly successful
type of literary interview. An intelligent
perception of the business, a perception which is not
general, perhaps is required fully to appreciate the
fact that in this department of newspaper work he
was an exceedingly skillful journalist. The secret
of his really brilliant success in this field lay in large
part in his instinct for luring the distinguished subject
of his interview into provocative statements,
enabling him to employ such heads as: “Is O. Henry
a Pernicious Literary Influence?” “Godlessness
Mars Most Contemporary Poetry,” “Americans
Lack Loyalty To Their Writers,” “Shackled
Magazine Editors Harm Literature,” “Declares
Our Rich Authors Make Cheap Literature” and
“Says American Literature Is Going To the
Dogs.”
At the time of the death of James Whitcomb
Riley, Kilmer hurried to the Catskills for his interview
with Bliss Carman. On his way back to the43
city, by way of his home at Mahwah, he dashed with
his usual impetuosity in front of the moving train
he was seeking to board, was knocked down and
hurled or dragged a considerable distance, and
taken to the Good Samaritan Hospital at Suffern,
New York, with three ribs fractured and other injuries;
where, wiring immediately to New York for
his secretary, he dictated an interview as engaging
and as full of journalistic craft as any he ever
wrote. He seemed much more intent on his Sunday
story, it is reported by H. Christopher Watts,
who was acting as his secretary at that time, than
on his predicament.
I did not see Kilmer at this time myself, but I
have an idea that, when he had relieved his mind of
the anxiety concerning his article, he entered into
the spirit of his experience with much relish. It
isn’t every day that one gets hit by a train, nor
everybody that has three ribs broken. Exhilarating
kind of thing, when you see it that way! I remember
one time when I was practically in hospital
myself he went to a good deal of trouble to come
to see me. He seemed to admire my predicament
very much, and, beaming upon me, remarked in
high good humour that it must be an entertaining
thing to be so completely at the mercy of circumstances44
over which you had no control. When shall
we look upon his like again!
III
I really doubt very much whether anybody ever
enjoyed food more than Kilmer. The slender
youth had become a decidedly stocky young man,
who ate mammoth meals with prodigious satisfaction.
He delighted upon sitting down to breakfast
to maintain, with almost savage earnestness (such
was the amusing effect), that the most fitting dish
for that meal was steak. As a matter of fact, however,
his habit was to miss his breakfast altogether
through haste to catch his train, except for a cup of
coffee and a piece of buttered toast which, when he
missed the ’bus, he ate, a mouthful every dozen or
so leaps, on his way down the hill (almost a mountain)
to the station. Sundays, however, with the
whole day at home, he apparently regarded among
other things as a sort of barbecue. Looking over
the morning table it was his custom to inquire with
the air of a man making a fairly satisfactory beginning,
what was scheduled for dinner.
Kilmer never ate any lunch, as the ordinary world
understands the word—about the first hour of the
afternoon he went (when his means had become45
such that he could afford it) to a sort of Thanksgiving
or Christmas dinner every day. How proceeding
directly to his office he did any work afterward,
was always considerable of a mystery to me. And
lunching alone he doubtless regarded as a misanthropic
perversion. His luncheons and his frequent
dinners in town alone represented what many would
regard as a rather arduous social life, which however
arduous, however, never failed to include the weekly
luncheon with his mother, Mrs. Kilburn-Kilmer.
As an epilogue, so to say, to his meal it was his wont
to have, speaking his order slowly so as to suck the
full flavour of the idea, “a large black cigar.”
One time being in the city with his family for a
period after the birth of one of his children, he gave
a series of Sunday morning breakfasts at a fashionable
restaurant (it was a pleasant crotchet with him
that he was “a fashionable young man”), entertainments
which were distinguished by, first, the fact
the guests so abundantly represented the world of
journalism that they filled a good portion of the
room, and, secondly, by the circumstance of their
lingering at the board until mid-day diners began
to arrive.
How a poet could not be a glorious eater, it was
one of Kilmer’s whims to say, he could not see; for46
the poet was happier than other men by reason of
his acuter senses, and as his eyes delighted in the
beauty of the world, so should his palate thrill with
pleasure in the taste of the earth’s bounteous yield
for the sustenance of men. The romance, too, of
the things we eat he felt lustily.
Rich spices from the Orient,
And fruit that knew Italian skies.
He had another, and a decidedly quaint, notion of
food. He firmly believed that hearty eating was an
adequate physical compensation for loss of sleep.
He was fond of declaring his faith in this fantastic
idea by means of a story of some “ancient receptive
child” (friend of his) who managed to bring up a
family of seven (or so) children by ill-paid hack-work
occupying most of the day and night—a noble
success due entirely to noble meals.
* * * * *
This man has home and child and wife
And battle set for every day.
This man has God and love and life;
These stand, all else shall pass away.
And “this man’s” days were long, long days:
Kilmer’s home, a place of boundless week-end hospitality
and almost equally boundless domesticity47
(guests being obliged to exercise much agility in
clambering about toys with which the stairs were
laden), was also year after year a place of almost
unbelievable literary industry. The trying idiosyncrasies
of the artistic temperament were about as
discernible in Kilmer as kleptomania. He was, as
you may say, social and domestic in his habits of
writing to an amazing degree. Night after night
he would radiantly walk up and down the floor singing
a lullaby to one of his children whom he carried
screaming in his arms while he dictated between
vociferous sounds to his secretary or wife—his wife
frequently driven by the drowsiness of two in the
morning to take short naps with her head upon the
typewriter while the literally tireless journalist
filled and lighted his pipe.
This, however, was an atmosphere of cloistral seclusion
compared with Kilmer’s office at the New
York Times. Here, where he regularly got
through each week enough hard work to hold down
three or four fairly capable young men, he maintained
a sort of salon for a ludicrous variety of picturesque
characters with nothing in particular to
do and no place else to go, ranging from types of
patrician leisure to stray dogs of the literary world
visibly out of a job.
48
The latter class, indeed, apparently regarded him
as a kind of a clearing house for employment. A
singularly convincing commentary on the radiating
humanity of this brilliant young man was one rather
grotesque feature of his mail. In addition to a constant
and copious stream of requests from persons
but slightly known, or quite unknown to him, for
advice as to how to succeed in letters, and for his
personal imprimatur on their enclosed manuscripts,
he was apparently constantly in receipt of innumerable
epistolary stories of extraordinary distress, suffered
(generally) by elderly characters defeated in
the lists of literature. Though there was in Kilmer’s
robust nature a decided distaste, somewhat
analogous to the innate aversion of the clean in
spirit to moral obliquity, for what he termed “ineffectual
people,” there was too an amusing strain of
paternal feeling toward most of those of all ages
with whom he was in contact. And this feeling he
did not neglect, whenever the occasion arose, to
translate into practical effect.
He had a comical manner of terming his elders
“young” So-and-So. I was six years his senior,
which at the period of life at which we met represented
a considerable difference in experience.
And yet, throughout our association, in spiritual49
force he was the oak, I the clinging vine. And I
know of cases where this was quite as much so when
the other man was something like fifteen years the
elder. One such instance, ludicrous in its contrast
between the two men, was confessed to me with
deep feeling just the other day.
“So-long” or “good-bye” was seldom Kilmer’s
parting word. It was rather a word he continually
used which will be thought of as peculiarly his as
long as his memory endures, the closing word of
“Rouge Bouquet.” The last time I saw him at his
home, then at Larchmont Manor, New York, my
companion (in marriage) and I upon leaving almost
missed our car, which started a block or so
from the Kilmer house. As the three of us dashed
after it, Kilmer stopped this car by what seemed to
me something like sheer force of his willing it to
stop. Then, as he dropped away from the race,
there came from him high and clear out of the
night (and always shall I hear it ring) his benediction:
“Farewell! Children.” Yes, it is even so;
as the spirit is measured and the frailties of the soul
are numbered, how many who knew this wondrous
boy were his “children”!
The wisdom of the maxim “A busy man is never
too busy to do one thing more” was indisputable in50
the spectacle of Kilmer. Though this was not, so
far as I recollect, a maxim he employed, he had one
of his own something like it, which admirably
summed up his practical philosophy. When confronted
by some financial dilemma, he was fond of
declaring: “The demand creates the supply. A
sound economic principle.” He seemed to crave
serious responsibilities and insistent obligations as
some men crave liquor; and he grew more rosy as
these increased.
Thank God for the mighty tide of fears
Against me always hurled!
Thank God for the bitter and ceaseless strife,
And the sting of His chastening rod!
There was nothing incongruous to Kilmer about the
incongruity expressed in a communication written
in 1916 to the Reverend Edward F. Garesché,
S. J.; a letter which began by saying, “I am sorry
that your letter of October 11 has been so long unanswered,
but this has been the busiest month of my
life”; which then told of his looping the loop of the
country in lecture engagements; proceeded to discuss
a matter which had made a strong appeal to his
heart, the founding of an Academy of Catholic
Letters to be called the Marian Institute; and concluded51
with the remark, “I will gladly take on the
work of acting secretary until the members make
their own selection.”
IV
In 1913, Kilmer’s daughter Rose, nine months of
age, was stricken with infantile paralysis. It was
then, upon his bringing his family to town to give
his daughter the treatment of a specialist, when he
came to my house to tell me of this, that I first distinctly
realised that this young man was remarkable—in
a manner far beyond mere talent. The idea
which he kept firmly before his mind was that it
had been declared there was no occasion to fear her
death as a result of her affliction. During the course
of his stay with me that day he said several times,
“Well, there are lots of people worse off than I
am.” This idea, too, it was apparent, he felt he
must hold before him. And then, with his amazing
and unconquerable flair for life, he launched upon
the theme that this was a “very interesting disease,”
and he elaborated the thought that an infirmity of
the body frequently resulted in an increased vitality
of the mind.
“I like to feel that I have always been a Catholic,”52
was a sentiment frequently expressed by Kilmer.
It has repeatedly been declared by friends
very close to him that his minute knowledge of pious
customs and practices of which a life-long Catholic
might easily be ignorant was a constant surprise to
them, but that with respect to religion as particularised
in himself he kept silent, would never discuss
the steps that led to his conversion, and it was only
by chance they discovered he was a daily communicant.
It was late in 1918 that Kilmer astonished
the little world that then comprised his family, his
friends and acquaintances by entering, with his
wife, the Roman Catholic Church. One afternoon
not long after this occurrence he not so much invited
as directed me over the telephone to meet him
that night for dinner at the Columbia Club. His
purpose soon became clear. This was the only
solemn hour I ever spent with Kilmer. I think it
well to record here what he deeply impressed upon
me: that it was this searing test of his spirit which
had come upon him in the affliction of his daughter
that fixed his religion.
Kilmer did not become a great patriot when his
country entered the world war. He was, of course,
the same in fibre then as before. Only then was
known to him and visible to others what was latent53
in his heart. And in this sense it was, I think, that
it was clear to him that he did not become, but had
always been a Catholic, though he had not earlier
realised it. He tried all things and held fast to that
which he found good. He was inwardly driven to
seek until his spirit found its home. That only the
time of his conversion was, in a sense, accidental,
and that the conversion itself was inevitable, must
be evident in the fact that he was never really himself
before he became, as we say, a convert. Then
his fluid spirituality, his yearning sense of religion,
was stabilized. What is the “secret,” as we say, of
all that has been told of his ability? His courage,
his mental and physical energy, were, manifestly,
unusual. But his character, in the faith that he
embraced, found its tempered spring. His talent
was a wingéd seed which in the rich soil which had
mothered so much art found fructification.
It is not an unsupported assertion to say that he
was in his time and place the laureate of the Catholic
Church. His sentiments as to the function of a
Catholic poet he has expressed very positively in
his essays and lectures. He joyed in the new proof
given by Helen Parry Eden “that piety and mirth
may comfortably dwell together.” “A convert to
Catholicism,” he wrote of Mr. Yeats on Lionel54
Johnson, “is not a person who wanders about weeping
over autumn winds and dead leaves, mumbling
Latin and sniffing incense.” Nor is it necessary to
lay æsthetic hands on the church’s treasures, “and
decorate rhymes with rich ecclesiastical imagery and
the fragrant names of the saints.” But in Faith
one may find “that purity and strength which are
the guarantees of immortality.”
And, once a Catholic, there never was any possibility
of mistaking Kilmer’s point of view: in all
matters of religion, art, economics and politics, as
well as in all matters of faith and morals, his point
of view was obviously and unhesitatingly Catholic.
Considerable as were his gifts and skill as a politician
in the business of his career, the veriest zealot
could not say that he did not do the most unpolitic
things in the service of his faith. A very positive
figure, he laboured tirelessly, alternating from one
field to another, for the Catholic Church.
As a brilliant interpretative critic of Catholic
writers, such as Crashaw, Patmore, Francis
Thompson, Lionel Johnson and Belloc, he brought,
I think I may venture to say, an altogether new
touch into Catholic journalism in America, a striking
and distinguished blend of “piety and mirth,”
which had the rare and highly effective quality of55
being both engaging and highly illuminating even
to, as Kilmer would amiably have said, the Pagan.
Impetus, of course, was given to his style in this by
his admiration for the brilliant school of English
Catholic journalists, an impetus doubtless accelerated
by the personal acquaintance with Belloc, the
Chestertons and the Meynells he gained in a flying
visit to England in 1914 to rescue his mother from
war difficulties in London; when, during a few odd
moments before his return, he established a lively
connection with the Northcliffe papers and T. P.’s
Weekly. Even so, Kilmer almost, or quite, alone
transplanted this particular spark; and his note of
witty common sense and spiritual sensibility was
particularly Kilmerian, too.
One day about four years ago the village Post
Office at Mahwah did a totally unprecedented and
most extraordinary business in outgoing mail, and
Kilmer was again multiplied manifold. The neat
circulars which he had printed and with which he
stuffed the mail box announced that the author of
“Trees,” a member of the staff of the New York
Times, etc., etc., “offered the following lectures for
the coming season.” The result may best be epitomised
in the parable of the gentleman who cast
his bread upon the waters to have it come back to56
him in the form of sardine sandwiches. The rapid
development of Kilmer’s lecture business, which
soon assumed the proportions of no mean career in
itself, immensely extended his force as a quickening
influence in the Catholic world. Before societies
and educational institutions in many places,
frequently travelling as far as Notre Dame, Indiana,
and Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, he flung his
bright portraits of “seekers after that real but elusive
thing called beauty, a thing which they found
in their submission to her who is the mother of all
learning, all culture, and all the arts, the Catholic
Church.”
V
As a literary lecturer and a reader of his own
poems before secular audiences his success was no
less abundant. In “the only combination of its kind
since Bill Nye and James Whitcomb Riley,” as the
circular of the J. B. Pond Lyceum Bureau stated
it, “the young American Poet” and the author of
“Pigs is Pigs” contributed considerably to the lightening
of the rigours of existence by an extended
repetition of “a joint evening of readings from their
works.” Ellis Parker Butler, in a letter before me,
writes of his partner on the programme:
57
He was a most charming travelling companion
and an ideal team-mate for the purpose we had in
mind. I would not have thought of going “on tour”
if I had not met Kilmer. My idea was never to
“go on tour” but, after I had met Kilmer, to “go on
tour with Kilmer.” He was altogether lovable and
loved.
It would be a decidedly false estimate of Kilmer
which failed to note, even with some emphasis, that
he was an excellent man of business. He “played
the game,” in the exceedingly difficult job of earning
a thoroughly competent living at the literary
profession, with a dexterity which, it was frequently
apparent, was at once an inspiration and a despair
to those who sought to rival him. The Kilmer cult
which grew apace was considerably accelerated by a
rich Kilmerian strategy. And he delivered to the
little world of intensely intense literary societies and
blue-nosed salons which hung upon his lips the pure
milk of the word with a strongly humorous consciousness
of the feat as a part of the immense sport
of living.
Kilmer’s “act” as it was observed from behind the
scenes is excellently presented by an associate in the
office of the New York Times. This writer says in
the Philadelphia Press:
58
Our editor analysed him into three distinct
manners: Kilmer, the literary man; Kilmer, the
lecturer; and Kilmer, himself. His first appearance
in the office would give you the cue to him for
the day. If he came in grinning with his pipe drawing
well, we would know that nothing was to be
feared; he was himself. When he got his “literary”
manner on, the symptom was a tapping of his eyeglass,
with his right hand on the fingers of his left.
When he appeared in his cutaway coat and a particularly
pastoral necktie, we knew that on that day
the elderly ladies of This Literary Club or the
young ladies of That Academy were to be treated to
a discourse on certain aspects of Victorian verse.
One day he came in, obviously decked out for a
lecture. Without his having said a word about it,
the assistant Sunday editor spoke up: “Let’s cut
out work this afternoon and hear Kilmer lecture.”
A look of horror overspread his face. “For
heaven’s sake, don’t,” he said. “I couldn’t go
through with it.” I don’t believe any of us ever did
hear him.
A thing which I found very singular was that, in
manner Kilmer was apt, in the two or three later
years of his life, to give strangers on their first meeting
the impression of being somewhat too dignified
for so young a man, of being, as his office associate
John Bunker in an admirable, even a remarkable,59
portrait of him at this period published in America,
says, “in fact just a trifle pompous.” Mr. Bunker
continues: “This was due partly to his physical appearance,
and also, insofar as it had any basis in
reality, to that protective instinct which quickly
teaches a sensitive and imaginative spirit to cast a
veil between itself and the outer world.”
I myself think this effect had its origin in the
same perverse instinct which causes you, immediately
after talking with a deaf person, to speak very
loud to your next auditor whom you very well know
can hear perfectly; that is, it was the result of being
keyed up to appearing on an elevated platform before
a curious throng. He one time astonished me
by the declaration that it was only by, quite early in
his life, drastically schooling himself to the task,
one then exceedingly trying and hateful to him, that
he became able to rise and “speak” at all. The most
entertaining recollection, by the way, that I have of
the Kilmerian pontifical manner is of a time when
he generously invited me to have my shoes polished
with him, thrust his hand deep into his pocket to pay
the boy, paused, and with a very large gesture
directed him to call in again later in the day.
There is first-rate perspicacity in the remark of
one of Kilmer’s friends, Laurence J. Gomme, that60
at one score and ten he was, in the amount that he
had lived, about seventy years old. Something of
the force and sharpness of Mr. Bunker’s evocation
of the man as he was at last resides, I think, in the
circumstance that here is no blending in the mind of
the flower and the bud. He says: “When I first
met Kilmer he had just passed his thirtieth year, but
he gave me the impression of being somewhat older.
I afterwards spoke of this to him, and it was his
theory that newspaper work had served to age him.
The truth was that it was due not merely to his
newspaper work, but generally to the incessant and
intense mental activity, the extraordinary and flaming
energy, whereby he crowded into ten years the
experiences of several ordinary lifetimes.” And
this touch of the slight Bunker portrait is, I feel,
essential to any fuller picture:
As to his physical aspect, he was stockily built
and about medium height, and his habit of body was
what I should call plump, though later, under the
stress of military drill, he changed somewhat in this
last respect. I noted at once that he had a remarkable
head—well rounded, with broad and high forehead
and a very pronounced bulge at the back, covered
thickly with dark, reddish-brown hair. But his
eyes were his most remarkable feature. They were
of the unusual colour of red, and they had a most61
peculiar quality which I can only inadequately suggest
by saying that they literally glowed. It actually
seemed as if there were a fire behind them, not a
leaping and blazing fire, but a steady and unquenchable
flame which appeared to suffuse the whole eyeball
with a brooding light. This characteristic was
so striking that I cannot help dilating on it. And
I observed later on that this glow, this brooding and
somewhat sombre light, never left his eyes even in
his most weary or most care-free moments, so that
they gave the impression of what I believe was the
fact—the impression of a brain behind them which
was working intensely and perhaps even feverishly
every hour of the waking day.
The better poet Kilmer became, as his friend
Richardson Wright says in his admirable “Appreciation”
in The Bellman, the less like a poet he
acted. And after he grew up, he would about as
soon have æstheticised, off the platform, as he would
have forged a check. Whenever he did refer to
poetry as related to himself he, as the slang term
has it, took it smiling. One of Kilmer’s most pronounced
pet aversions was the phrase, utterly
mawkish to him, about “prostituting” one’s talent.
He one time explained to me, with considerable apparent
pride, that he used every idea three times: in
a poem, in an article, and in a lecture.
62
Charles Willis Thompson, an editorial writer of
the New York Times, and to whom belongs the
credit of first taking, as editor of the Sunday Magazine
and Book Review, Kilmer’s “stuff” in any
amount, inspired, so to say, the poem “Delicatessen,”
in this way. Mr. Thompson happened to remark
to Kilmer that of course there were a lot of
things which couldn’t be treated in poetry. Kilmer
declared he would like to know what they were.
Mr. Thompson cast about in his mind for the most
ridiculous theme for a poem he could think of, and
finally proclaimed that no one could possibly write
a poem about such a thing as a delicatessen shop.
“I’ll write a poem about a delicatessen shop,” Kilmer
promptly replied. “It will be a long poem.
I’ll sell it to a high-brow magazine. It will be much
admired. And it will be a good poem.” He insisted
on betting on this the sum of several dollars.
The origin of “The Twelve-Forty-Five” I do not
exactly know. But I remember shortly before that
poem was written, sitting disgusted and miserable
with Kilmer in that horrible “Jersey City shed”
waiting for the midnight train. Taking out of his
mouth that villainously large, fifty-cent pipe (mentioned
in all genuine appreciations) Kilmer, with
a fervour almost violent, suddenly exclaimed: “I63
certainly do like railroad stations! They are fine
places!” The very famous poem “The White
Ships and The Red” (a poem so wonderfully effective
that it was at once reprinted all over the country
and in Europe) was a newspaper assignment.
He rather liked the poem when he saw it in the
paper; though, with his feet cocked up on his desk,
he spoke apologetically of what he felt to be the failure
of the latter stanzas to link up perfectly with the
first, explaining that a luncheon appointment, at
which he chatted for an hour or two, had split the
writing of it into two sittings. That the author of
this “Lusitania” poem thoroughly felt and meant
what he said, is, I fancy, sufficiently proven by the
event to permit of this being told.
The point is, that Kilmer was a poet, an artist of
a high order, a perfectly conscious master of what
he was doing. The febrile gush of emotion he
loathed. He knew finely that:
It is stern work, it is perilous work, to thrust your hand in the sun
And pull out a spark of immortal flame to warm the hearts of men.
There was nothing accidental about the effect of his
own verse, any more than there was “luck” in his64
worldly success. He achieved the one as he did the
other by a masculine heart and mind. And while
all things were necessary and joyous, it was impossible
not to feel that, after all, throughout his day
“the rhymer’s honest trade” was his primary concern.
He was sufficiently grounded in literature to feel,
as Mr. Le Gallienne says, no “weariness with those
literary methods which had sufficed for Chaucer and
Shakespeare and Milton, or Catullus or Bion, or
François Villon—content, with reverent ambition,
to tread that immortal path.”
In his religious mysticism a trace, and more than
a trace, has been found of Crashaw, of Vaughan, of
Herbert, and of Belloc and Chesterton. And there
is no difficulty at all about finding in Kilmer hints
of Patmore, and there may be easily recognised
something of the accents of A. E. Housman and of
Edwin Arlington Robinson. He did, indeed, to
put it in a racy phrase, have the drop on those who
do not know that all art that endures must have its
roots in a constant interrogation of the “unimpeachable
testimony” of the ages. His song was as old
as the hills, and as fresh as the morning. Precisely
in this, in fact, is his remarkableness, his originality,
as a contemporary poet; and in this will be, I think,65
his abiding quality. “Simple and direct, yet not
without subtle magic,” wrote Father James J.
Daly, S.J., in a review of “Trees and Other
Poems,” printed in America, his verse “seems artlessly
naïve, yet it possesses deep undercurrents of
masculine and forceful thought; it is ethical in its
seriousness, and yet as playful and light-hearted as
sunlight and shadows under summer oaks.” And
this admirable summing up of Kilmer’s talent
leaves little more in the way of direct criticism to be
said.
Mr. Le Gallienne with felicitous tact of phrase
has touched upon this, that “no young poet of our
time has so reverently, on so many pages, in so
many different ways, so playfully at times, as in
that masterpiece of playful reverence, ‘A Blue
Valentine,’ woven through the texture of his song
the love of his lady—that lady ‘Aline,’ whose name
will be gently twined about his as long as the
printed word endures.” A misquotation in the
Ladies’ Home Journal led to an interesting tribute
to the author of “Trees.” Many readers of the
Journal were somewhat startled to find the editor
attributing to John Masefield the lines:
A tree that looks at God all day
And lifts her leafy arms to pray.
66
The following issue of the magazine contained this
correction and acknowledgment by Mr. Bok:
I am free to confess that I did not know the correct
author. I had been reading John Masefield
that morning and unconsciously wrote his name as
the author of these lines. A number of friends have
pointed to the error and supplied the knowledge.
The author is Joyce Kilmer, and to him I owe, and
here express, my sense of deep apology. The exquisite
lines were worthy of John Masefield, but
that does not make them less worthy of their rightful
author, as all will agree who read his beautiful
work in his book “Trees and Other Poems.”
As one, somewhat effusive commentator has remarked,
“Trees” just could not be confined within
the covers of a book. At once reprinted in newspapers
throughout the United States (and still being
so reprinted) it was crowned in that warmest
of all ways in which a work of literature can be
honoured, by being cut out by the world and pasted
in its hat. In one version it reads, in part, in this
way:
Cuando contemplo un arbol pienso: nunca vere un poema tan bello y tan intenso.
Un arbol silencioso que con ansia se aferra a la dulce y jugosa entrans de la tierra.
67
Un arbol que mirando los cielos se extansia y en oracion levanta los brazos noche y dia.
Many of Kilmer’s poems have been translated into
Spanish by Salomon de la Selva, Enriquez Urenia
and others, and have appeared in a number of prominent
South American papers.
In a letter from France to Edward W. Cook,
who in quest of material for a book on contemporary
poets had written Kilmer asking several questions,
Kilmer commented, among other things, on
his “earlier efforts in poetry” (as the questionnaire
apparently had put it), in a manner which is evidence
again of how perfectly well he knew what he
was about. “If what I nowadays write is considered
poetry,” he announced, “then I became a poet
in November, 1913.” Admirable for hard-headedness,
directness and precision, it is a statement
which leaves the critic no point upon which to take
issue. His early poems “were only the exercises of
an amateur, imitations, useful only as technical
training.” The peculiar thing about these highly
skilful experiments in various forms of craftsmanship
is that they were so very much better as poems
than the derivative efforts usually written at this
period of apprenticeship, “so free,” as Mr. Le Gallienne68
notes, “from those artistic immaturities which
have made many old great poets angrily denounce
unlicensed reprinters of their ‘first editions.’” And
in this fact they have a decided, and a perfectly legitimate,
interest for the observer of the development
of his talent—though Kilmer declared “they
were worthless, that is, all of them which preceded
a poem called ‘Pennies,’ which you will find in my
book ‘Trees and Other Poems.’” He added, “I
want all of my poems written before that to be forgotten.”
He was writing, one remembers, to a gentleman
with whom he was so slightly acquainted that he
addressed him as “Dear Mr. Cook,” with the measure
of whose sympathy and critical acumen, it is
to be inferred, he was not conversant, and who presumably
was about to estimate (with what perspective
he could not perceive) his earliest productions.
It were better to head off any uncertainty in the
matter. Also, we all know, one’s hot impatience
with one’s strivings of yesterday is mellowed by
time into an amiable and appreciative tolerance of
one’s earnest efforts of twenty years ago. It is difficult
to think that Kilmer at fifty would have had an
unjust scorn of those charming exercises on the
poetic scales he wrote at twenty-one.
69
Anyhow, no man can, by decree or otherwise, obliterate
his past; both the good and the bad that he
has done continue to pursue him. Ten times thrice
happy is he, rarest of men, who, like Kilmer, never
penned a line or said a word or did a deed that can
arise to bring confusion to those that love him. The
world does not willingly let die those verses on which
glistens the dew of his tender youth. They are
brought forth for praise by no mean critics in tribute
to his memory. And in conformity with the
wishes of those most jealous of his good name as a
poet a representative selection of his early poems
is reprinted in these volumes.
He that lives by the pen shall perish by the pen,
saith the wisdom of James Huneker. For a sapling
poet, within a few short years and by the hard business
of words, to attain to a secretary and a butler
and a family of, at length, four children, is a modern
Arabian Nights Tale. Equally impossible is it,
seemingly, to accomplish another thing, which is a
remarkable part of Kilmer’s distinction. From
first to last, from the verses contributed to Moods in
1909 to the last poem he wrote, “The Peacemaker,”
printed in the Saturday Evening Post in October,
1918, Kilmer was a poet’s poet. “A pretty good
poet,” said such a poet (shaking his head at his conviction70
of the truth of this) as Bliss Carman. His
poems were repeatedly adjudged high places
among the best poems read before the Poetry Society.
Among competitive honours, under the name
of “John Langdon” he won easily enough with his
poem, “The Annunciation,” first prize in the
Marian Poetry contest conducted by The Queen’s
Work, in July, 1917, an award competed for by a
great number of poets, including many in other
countries. He was a poet’s poet who declared (with
considerable vehemence, I remember) that he certainly
wished he had written “Casey At The Bat.”
He one time said in praise of a book of essays that it
was “that kind of glorified reporting which is
poetry.” As a singer of the simpler annals of humanity
his place will draw closer and closer, I think,
to that of the most widely loved poet of our own era.
Only the name of James Whitcomb Riley expresses
in greater measure the rich gift of speaking with
authentic song to the simplest hearts. A man who
believes that churches are devices of the devil and
literature a syrup for crack-brained females can enjoy,
with profit to his soul, “The House With Nobody
In it,” “Dave Lilly” and “The Servant Girl
and the Grocer’s Boy” equally with “The Old
Swimmin’-Hole” and “Little Orphant Annie.”
71
If Colonel Roosevelt had never done anything
other than what he has done in writing, he would
undoubtedly be highly esteemed as an American
man of letters. And people have made very creditable
reputations as humourists who never wrote
anything like as humorous essays as those of Joyce
Kilmer. They fairly reek with the joy of life.
They explode with intellectual robustness. They
are fragrant in fancy, richly erudite in substance,
touch-and-go in manner, poetic in feeling, rocking
with mirth, and display an extraordinary flair for
style. If it should seem that I am not here measuring
my words I suggest a reference to a piece of
documentary evidence called “The Gentle Art of
Christmas Giving,” a “Sunday story” in the New
York Times, here reprinted. Writing at top-notch
speed, never looking again at what he had written,
intentionally producing a readily marketable commodity,
from which profit must be realised quickly,
Kilmer was an exceedingly rare bird in America;
that is, a belletristic journalist. There is always the
touch to his work of a man of letters. Decidedly
Bellocian, Chestertonian, certainly his humorous
essays are. But that it was a good deal more an
affinity of mind with, than an imitation of, those
splendidly humorous English philosophers is borne72
out by this: Joyce Kilmer did not talk poetry, but
he did talk exactly like his essays, which admirably
present the brave humorous wisdom of the man as
his intimate friends knew him.
Official critical authority did not dampen his
verve. As a contributing editor of “Warner’s
Library of the World’s Best Literature,” he supplied
the articles on Madison Cawein, John Masefield,
William Vaughn Moody and Francis Thompson.
He contributed prefaces to various volumes
of standard authors. Excellent examples of this
department of his activity are his Introduction to
Thomas Hardy’s “The Mayor of Casterbridge” in
the Modern Library, his introduction to the American
edition of the “Verses” of Hilaire Belloc, and
the introduction to the volume “Dreams and Images,”
his anthology of Catholic poets. The Introduction
to this Anthology is dated 165th Regiment,
Camp Mills, Mineola, N. Y., August, 1917, just a
year before Sergeant Kilmer’s death in battle.
Doubtless few know that at one time Kilmer had
drawn a contract to write a “Life” of Father Tabb.
Because of peculiar complications in the situation
this enterprise, most unfortunately, fell through.
In 1916 Kilmer was called to the faculty of the
School of Journalism of New York University, in73
succession to Arthur Guiterman, to lecture on
“Magazine and Newspaper Verse.” The object of
the course, which was open to outsiders as well as
to those enrolled in the School of Journalism, was
to familiarise the students with the practical side of
writing verse for publication.
VI
It seems rather a misnomer, and something of
an absurdity, to say that Kilmer was ever neutral
in anything. But in the political sense he was a
neutral, and, if it may be put that way, neutral to
a pronounced degree, preceding the entrance of the
United States into the war. His keen feeling for
the sturdy virtues and robust customs of Old England,
Merrie England, was of course, patent. His
delight in London, and the English countryside,
which he knew from a child, was manifest. The
pillars of his fairly large literature were, of course,
English. His profound sense of integrity was violently
jolted by the violation of Belgium. As the
war went on, however, he developed an attitude
which was quite capable of being interpreted as
Pro-German, by anyone interested in so interpreting
it. The explanation of this attitude is simple
enough. Instinctively a combative character intellectually,74
his humorous essays, which expressed him
so intimately, almost without exception found their
spring in his running counter to some current idea.
As he one time remarked, he was “bored by feminism,
futurism, free love;” and, too, he was invariably
for the under dog. It may seem rather grotesque
to present Germany by implication as an
under dog in the early years of the war; the point is,
the force of the argument was so overwhelmingly
against Germany that Kilmer reacted to this in a
characteristic fashion, stood boldly against the current,
and was, in fact, a neutral—until the sinking
of the Lusitania. All reports agree, including even
reports from sources of strong anti-English feeling
where Kilmer’s inclination to see what could be said
for Germany was coveted, that from this point on
his manner was altogether hostile to Germany.
Outside of his Lusitania poem he did not, so far as
I know, denounce the deed; but the unanimity and
the precision with which the change in him is fixed
by all who observed him is striking.
Kilmer’s successive literary passions were a curious
medley. He seemed to have been born with a
great love for Scott, and he held stoutly to Sir
Walter throughout the years. In his burly days he
found a humorous sport in defending, with jovial75
emphasis, the old-fashioned chivalrous romance
against the scientific modern novel. In his æsthetic
period he had a touch, hardly more, of Oscar Wilde,
though early in his literary career he experienced a
rather severe case of Swinburneitus. Some time
shortly after this he was very much intrigued by the
Celtic revival. Shaemas O’Sheel, a friend dating
back to Columbia days, bears testimony that an
early boast of Kilmer’s was that an ancestor of his
had been hanged for taking a rebel’s part in ’ninety-eight.
And though as we know, Kilmer’s immediate
ancestry was not Irish, a Gaelic enthusiast
who has made a specialty of the Irish language, suggests
in his ardour, that the name Kilmer is a derivation
of Mac Gilla Mor. At any rate, an affection
for Ireland—her literature, her lore, her traditions,
and her people—was indeed natural with him.
In his Yeats period Kilmer had about chosen
“Nine Bean Rows” as the name of his house then in
the course of construction, though it was not altogether
“of clay and wattles made.” The thing
which deterred him from this decision was that persons
unacquainted with the poem “Innisfree,” to
whom he spoke of the matter, conceived his address
as Number Nine Beanrose Avenue. What a funny
street, they said, that is. Literary merely, of76
course, that; and though a part of the whole, remote
from later, deeper and graver things. Something
inherently Irish in Kilmer undoubtedly was
felt by many, Irish themselves and very much so,
who, in some cases, are “quite certain” that the fact
of their being Irish was the reason why he regarded
them and their work as writers with friendship.
He did, indeed, like all manner of Irish. He liked
the Irish fairies, he liked Lady Gregory, he liked
most decidedly the poor Irish people who went to
the Catholic church, and (as he later showed), of
all soldiers, Irish soldiers he liked best.
Romantic Ireland is not old;
For years untold her youth will shine,
Her heart is fed on Heavenly bread,
The blood of martyrs is her wine.
Everything chivalrous and sacrificial appealing
to his deepest instincts, he felt noble “delight in
hopes that were vain.” It is not at all improbable
that had he been an Irishman born and resident in
Ireland he would have been among the martyrs of
Easter Week. In certain qualities of his soul a kinship
with these spirits may readily be traced.
Some of them, I have been told, he knew personally;
and his reverence for Plunkett he has written.
77
There is no rope can strangle song,
And not for long death takes his toll;
No prison bars can dim the stars,
Nor quicklime eat the living soul.
And all that Kilmer wrote, every line of it, he wrote
in two ways; he wrote it in words, and he wrote it in
his acts. When the idea of the Poets’ Meeting to
express the sympathy of American poets with the
three Irish martyred poets of Easter Week, Pearse,
MacDonough and Plunkett, first occurred to
Eleanor Rogers Cox, she asked Kilmer’s advice
about it over the telephone. And he said, “Go
ahead, I’ll back you up,” with the result that the
meeting, a success, took place in Central Park, with
Edwin Markham presiding, Kilmer, Margaret
Widdemer, Miss Cox, Louis Untermeyer, and
many other representative poets taking part.
When you say of the making of ballads and songs that it is a woman’s work,
You forget all the fighting poets that have been in every land.
There was Byron, who left all his lady-loves, to fight against the Turk,
And David, the singing king of the Jews, who was born with a sword in his hand.
78
It was yesterday that Rupert Brooke went out to the Wars and died,
And Sir Philip Sidney’s lyric voice was as sweet as his arm was strong;
And Sir Walter Raleigh met the axe as a lover meets his bride,
Because he carried in his soul the courage of his song.
Indeed, in the logical scheme of things (or, at any
rate, in Joyce Kilmer’s scheme of things) the poet
is a soldier, an idealist with the courage of his song;
and, in a manner of speaking, all soldiers are poets,
whether or not they ever pen a line, for they give
supreme expression to the conviction of their soul.
And then, as Christopher Morley has finely written
in his tribute to Kilmer, “the poet must go where
the greatest songs are singing.” To anyone who
knew Kilmer it would have been perfectly dumfounding
if, when war was declared between his
country and Germany, he had not done exactly as
he did. It is inconceivable—to picture him moving
about here, from restaurant to office, in this hour.
Flatly, the thing can’t be done. With him, when
he joined the army, it was only one fight more, the
best, and as it proved, the last.
He hated many things, but I believe that of all79
things he hated most a pacifist—a pacifist in anything.
He was a fighter. He fought for his home,
stone by stone; he fought for his renown. His conception
of the church was the Church Militant. His
thoughts dwelt continually on warrior-saints. He
believed in the nobility of war and the warrior’s calling,
so long as the cause was holy, or believed to be
holy. As he saw it, there was no question as to his
duty. This I know, you might as well have asked
Niagara Falls why it pours over its ledge, as have
discussed with Kilmer the matter of his going to
war. That was, in its way, just such another force
of nature. As to what might happen to him, it is
hardly necessary to remark that his faith told him
that that would be all right, too. John Bunker was
among the last to bid him farewell. There is the
Kilmerian splendour in what he wrote:
You didn’t pose, self-conscious of your lot,
Or speak of what might be or might have been;
You always thought heroics simply rot,
And so you merely wore your old-time grin.
Kilmer had first joined the Officers’ Reserve
Training corps. He soon resigned from this. In
less than three weeks after the United States entered
the war he enlisted as a private in the Seventh80
Regiment, National Guard, New York. His own
statement was: “I haven’t time for Plattsburg: had
too much work to finish, but I had to get in.” The
Regiment was mustered into the Federal Service on
July 15, 1917; and Kilmer expected to go to training
camp somewhere in the South for a couple of
months, then to be sent to “France, or Russia, or
Cuba, or Mexico or somewhere else.” He had a
great distaste for going to Russia, because he disliked
cold climates. He one time expressed a decided
aversion to a book commonly held to be quite
good. When asked what was the matter with it, he
denounced it as being about “one of those cold
countries.” It would not, of course, have been Kilmer
had he not found elation in the distinguished
and picturesque character of the crack regiment to
which he belonged. “We are the oldest outfit in the
Guard—Lafayette reviewed us in 1824 and Joffre
two weeks ago.” If you had not seen the dress uniform
of “the Seventh” you heard all about it at
lunch. And “hard newspaper man” as he was, he
became even “harder” now. “Can’t hurt my feelings,”
he wrote requesting a friend to be quite frank
with him. “Hard military character, seriously considering
acquisition of habit of chewing tobacco.”
Shortly before the Seventh left New York for81
Spartanburg, South Carolina, Kilmer was transferred,
at his own request, to the 165th Infantry,
U. S. A., formerly the famous old “Fighting Sixty-ninth,”
New York, a unit of the Rainbow Division,
assembled at Camp Mills, Mineola, Long Island.
He was most particular to impress upon his friends
the point that he had been transferred at his own
volition. I do not know that he ever said so, in so
many words, but I gathered from him the impression
that a considerable part of his motive in having
himself transferred was occasioned by his belief that
the 165th would go sooner than the Seventh to the
battlefield. Then, too, as we know, he was “half
Irish”; and an Irish-American regiment doubtless
was a powerful magnet to him. In the 165th the
people he liked best of all were “the wild Irish boys
who left Ireland a few years ago, some of them to
escape threatened conscription, and travelled about
the country in gangs, generally working on the railroads.
They have delightful songs that have never
been written down, but sung in vagabonds’ camps
and country jails. I have got some of the songs
down and hope to get more—‘The Boston Burglar’—‘Sitting
in My Cell All Alone’—they are a fine,
a veritable Irish-American folk-lore.”
Kilmer at this time was the father of four children,82
named respectively Kenton Sinclair, Rose,
Deborah Clanton and Michael Barry. One day he
appeared in my office on an errand of business relating
to the handling of his literary property. He
was, in outward effect, perfectly composed, an admirable
picture of a young soldier. It was then, in
what followed, that he displayed the most extraordinary,
the most amazing, measure of spiritual stature
that I ever observed in any man or ever read
of in any human book. Settled, with his customary
air, in my chair, he demanded some pipe tobacco.
I had none. And for this he heartily damned me
out. Then he said: “Bob, my affairs are somewhat
in disarray.” Thinking that perhaps he wanted to
borrow two dollars, or something like that, I asked:
“What’s the matter, Joyce?” “Well,” he answered,
quite in his ordinary way, “several days ago Rose
died; yesterday my son, Christopher, was born;
Kenton is with my wife at her mother’s; my family
is, in fact, very much scattered; I’m expecting to
go to France within a few days—and I have many
other difficulties.” That was all he said as to this.
He then talked excellent business. I went to the
elevator with him. We shook hands more quietly
than usual; he said, “Good-bye, Bob;” and the door
of the car closed upon him, standing erect in his military83
overcoat, looking somewhat serious. That
was all.
From Company H. Kilmer was transferred,
within a short time, to Headquarters Company, and
exchanged his eight hours a day of violent physical
exercise (“most deadening to the brain, a useful
anodyne for one, coming as it did after my grief,”
he wrote in an intimate letter) for exacting but “interesting”
statistical work. Though called Senior
Regimental Statistician he continued to rank as a
private. His work was under the direction of the
Regimental Chaplain, Father Francis Patrick
Duffy. He was thankful, he wrote from Mineola
in a letter at this time, that he was not with the
Seventh at Spartanburg, as from Mineola he could
telephone to his wife every night, and he said: “I’ll
be an accomplished cuss when I get back from the
wars—I’ll know how to typewrite and to serve Mass
and to sing the ‘Boston Burglar.’”
VII
It was “the pleasantest war he had ever attended,”
so he wrote back from France. “Nice war,
nice people, nice country, nice everything,” he said
on the back of a postcard. To the Reverend James84
J. Daly he wrote, “When I next visit Campion,
I’ll teach you (in addition to ‘The Boston Burglar’)
an admirable song called ‘Down in the Heart of
the Gas-House District.’ I sing it beautifully.”
And “as a common soldier, I have the privilege of
intimacy with the French peasants—and I find
them edifyingly good Catholics.” But his pleasures
in war he has told, as none but the author of
“Trees” and “Main Street” could tell them, in his
letters. What he never told must be read between
the lines. When the war was over, he said, he never
wanted again to go far away from Browne’s Chop
House and Shanley’s Bar. Though it is firmly held
in the background, there is in all that he wrote from
France, it seems to me, a reflection that his life was,
so to say, somewhat in disarray. And clearly
enough, though proudly, too, in the few poems
that he sent back he spoke his body’s pain:
Upon his will he binds a radiant chain,
For Freedom’s sake he is no longer free.
It is his task, the slave of liberty,
With his own blood to wipe away a stain.
That pain may cease, he yields his flesh to pain,
To banish war, he must a warrior be;
He dwells in Night, eternal Dawn to see,
And gladly dies, abundant life to gain.
85
And:
My shoulders ache beneath my pack
(Lie easier, Cross, upon His back).
I march with feet that burn and smart
(Tread, Holy feet, upon my heart).
Men shout at me who may not speak
(They scourged Thy back and smote Thy cheek).
I may not lift a hand to clear
My eyes of salty drops that sear.
(Then shall my fickle soul forget
Thy Agony of Bloody Sweat?)
My rifle hand is stiff and numb
(From Thy pierced palm red rivers come).
And in the closing lines of this poem certainly is
given, as fully as anything can be told in this world,
the answer to the question, How did the war most
affect Joyce Kilmer?—
Lord, Thou didst suffer more for me
Than all the hosts of land and sea.
So let me render back again
This millionth of Thy gift. Amen.
86
Though he said, “I have very little chance to read
contemporary poetry out here,” he did read, as he
says, “what do you suppose? The ‘Oxford Book of
English Verse.’” And he hoped that contemporary
poetry was
reflecting the virtues which are blossoming on the
blood-soaked soil of this land—courage, and self-abnegation,
and love, and faith—this last not faith
in some abstract goodness, but faith which God
Himself founded and still rules. France has turned
to her ancient faith with more passionate devotion
than she has shown for centuries. I believe that
America is learning the same lesson from war, and
is cleansing herself of cynicism and pessimism and
materialism and the lust for novelty which has
hampered our national development. I hope that
our poets already see this tendency and rejoice in
it—if they do not they are unworthy of their craft.
“Just what effect the war would have had on Kilmer
had he been spared is of course an entirely elusive
topic,” has said one very able and on the whole
most valuable commentator, speaking from the
testimony then in hand, and voicing, I fancy, an
idea still rather general. It is not now, I think, an
elusive topic at all, but a matter as plain as a pikestaff.
And the matter is, by the way, the second of87
the two most indispensable pages in Kilmer’s story.
It is a page in which his character underwent another
metamorphosis as consequential in its effect
on his talent even, if that could be possible, as his
conversion to the Catholic faith.
Kilmer left the United States a professional
writer from his twenty-third year, and one of the
most accomplished, prolific and industrious journalists
of his day. Writing with him had become a
habit almost as natural as speech. It was his intention
when he left New York to write a war book.
He discussed this project with his publishers even
so definitely as to have settled upon a title: “Here
and There With the Fighting Sixty-Ninth.” As
time passed it became puzzling why no “copy” of
any kind came from him. And as still more time
passed this matter assumed for me an element of
more than considerable mystery. It was incomprehensible
because none of the reasons which would
ordinarily apply in such a situation explained Kilmer’s
case to me. If it had been anyone else I
should have concluded that he was unable to find
time to write anything. But precisely the point
about Kilmer was that he did the impossible: it was
quite his habit to, in the racy phrase, “get away
with” situations which would have floored anyone88
else. It was to my mind an illogical hypothesis that
he could be frustrated by obstacles. And I felt
that, inexplicable as it was for Kilmer to fail in
anything or to neglect any opportunity, he was
here failing in justice to his career. How was it in
fact? As it had always been. He was receiving the
light opened to him. There could not be, I submit,
any more telling proof that he had genius, the capacity
to become an absolutely great writer, than
this: that in this war which has prompted more people
to write, and has produced more “copy” than
nearly all the other events of history put together,
he ceased altogether to be a journalist of any kind;
that is, even the instinct of the journalist dropped
from him, when he touched it.
He had had no thought, he says, of attempting to
report the war: “If I had, I’d have come over as a
correspondent instead of as a soldier.” All his days
he had been trying to get closer and closer to the
heart of life. In the war his profound instinct for
humanity found fulfilment. Of his close comrades
he writes: “Say a prayer for them all, they’re brave
men and good, and splendid company. Danger
shared together and hardships mutually borne develops
in us a sort of friendship I never knew in
civilian life, a friendship clean of jealousy and89
gossip and envy and suspicion—a fine, hearty, roaring,
mirthful sort of thing, like an open fire of whole
pine-trees in a giant’s castle.”
He was at present “a poet trying to be a soldier.”
“To tell the truth, I am not at all interested in writing
nowadays, except in so far as writing is the expression
of something beautiful. And I see daily
and nightly the expression of beauty in action instead
of words, and I find it more satisfactory.”
“My days of hack writing are over, for a time at
least.” Upon his return to civilian life his civilian
work “may be straight reporting.” As for “that
mob of war writers (thank God—let me pharisaically
say—that I am not one of them).” The book?
“The only sort of book I care to write about the war
is the sort people will read after the war is over—a
century after it is over!”
Kilmer’s “Holy Ireland,” a sketch of a lodging
for the night enjoyed by a little group of Irish-American
soldiers at a farmhouse in France, is the
only piece of prose writing of any extent at all that
came from him overseas. He himself wrote of it to
his publishers: “I sent you a prose sketch ‘Holy
Ireland,’ which represents the best prose writing I
can do nowadays.” It is unmistakably a piece of
literature, that is to say, though slight enough in90
substance, a work of firm and exquisite and enduring
art.
In a letter to the Reverend Edward F. Garesché,
S.J., one of the last he wrote, the following paragraphs
occur:
I have written very little—two prose sketches and
two poems—since I left the States, but I have a
rich store of memories. Not that what I write
matters—I have discovered, since some unforgettable
experiences, that writing is not the tremendously
important thing I once considered it. You
will find me less a bookman when you next see me,
and more, I hope, a man.
And he ends with these words: “Pray for me, my
dear Father, that I may love God more and that I
may be unceasingly conscious of Him—that is the
greatest desire I have.”
Though he gloried in being a private soldier, it is
quite evident, too, that he was charmed with his promotion.
“I am now a sergeant,” appears on the
back of every copy of the well-known “tin-hat”
post-card, and in every letter near this date. In
more than one intimate letter he says: “I’ll never be
anything higher. To get a commission I’d have to
go away for three months to school, and then91
whether or not I was made an officer—I’d be sent to
some outfit other than this, and I don’t want to leave
this crowd. I’d rather be a sergeant in the 69th
than a lieutenant in any other regiment in the
world.” “A volunteer regiment, the bravest and
best regiment in the army.” “I have a new stripe—an
inverted chevron of bright gold on the left cuff
for six months’ service ... let my children be
proud of it.” And, “a long moustache I have.”
For a while he had worked in the Adjutant’s
Office, having special charge of recording and reporting
statistics. Then he was no longer (“thank
God!”) doing statistics. Someone over here had
said that he had “a bullet-proof job.” “I had one,
but succeeded, after two months intriguing, in getting
rid of it.” “At that time I was just an office
hack—now I am a soldier, in the most fascinating
branch of the service there is—sheer romance, night
and day—especially night.” He had become attached
to the Regimental Intelligence Section,
working as an observer—“very amusing work,”
“wonderful life!”—“the finest job in the army!”
But “I don’t know what I’ll be able to do in civilian
life—unless I become a fireman!” “I am having
a delightful time, but it won’t break my heart
for the war to end.”
92
“Rouge Bouquet” was his “first attempt at versification
in a dug-out.” He had lived in “billets,
dug-outs, trenches, observatories and all sorts of
queer places.” And at length, he was “(after a
most violent and amusing month) resting (six hours
out of every twenty-four!) in a beautiful place,
among the firs and pines on a lovely mountain top,
from which I can see strange things.” “I sleep on a
couch made soft with deftly laid young spruce
boughs and eat at a table set under good, kind
trees.” And with that inimitable, irrepressible and
incomparable Kilmerian pleasure he contemplated
what he called “my senility”:
I picture myself at sixty, with a long white
moustache, a pale gray tweed suit, a very large
panama hat, I can see my gnarled but beautifully
groomed hands as they tremblingly pour out the
glass of dry sherry which belongs to every old man’s
breakfast. I cannot think of myself at seventy or
eighty—I grow hysterical with applause—I am
lost in a delirium of massive ebony canes, golden
snuff-boxes, and dainty silk hats.
“When we first met over here,” wrote Kilmer’s
friend Charles L. O’Donnell, Chaplain 332d Infantry,
in a letter to Thomas Walsh which should be
written into the record, “he was in the personnel93
department of his regiment, having had his time
of service in the field and done some particularly
good work in the intelligence line. He was then
about to go into the intelligence permanently and so
avid of it was he as to be ready to relinquish his
hard-earned sergeant’s chevrons. In the event,
however, that sacrifice was not demanded. After
this change in his work he was much more agreeably
placed, in particular he had more freedom and more
time to see his friends. He was worshipped by the
men about him. I have heard them speak with awe
of his coolness and his nerve in scouting patrols in
No Man’s Land. As an intelligence man he made
personally a few very valuable discoveries: this was
when I was with him in our comparatively quiet
sector. I can only conceive that he distinguished
himself later in the larger opportunities that came
his way.” The letter continues:
We were both in the army but he was also of it.
I was amazed to find him so quickly become a soldier
with the soldier’s point of view. But he had
seen so much more than I, even then, and each day
in this war is equivalent to long campaigns of other
times. I felt, and was a rookie beside him. He had
got a perspective on his life at home that made him
smile with indulgent pity on some literary aspects94
of it. I spoke of what must have been his earlier
views, the good he was doing and the need of doing
it. But he was not ready to relinquish a position he
had bought at the price of suffering, cold, hunger,
fatigue, with the hourly self denials that military
discipline means. Not that he spoke of these things
in this way, but I knew they had gone into the creation
of his new stand and I knew in my heart it was
higher ground.
A closer witness is Sergeant-Major Lemist
Esler, who served side by side with Kilmer in the
Marne advance. Shortly afterward returned to the
United States for service as an instructor at an
army cantonment, he said in an interview in the
New York Times: “The front was his goal and no
sooner had the regiment reached France than he
made every possible effort to be transferred.”
He finally had himself moved to the Intelligence
Department. It was in that department that he
was elevated to the rank of Sergeant. I was supply
sergeant at the time and Joyce Kilmer was a perfect
trial to me. He would always be doing more
than his orders called for—that is, getting much
nearer to the enemy’s positions than any officer
would ever be inclined to send him. Night after
night he would lie out in No Man’s Land, crawling
through barbed wires, in an effort to locate enemy95
positions, and enemy guns, and tearing his clothes
to shreds. On the following day he would come to
me for a new uniform.
“There was something of what the Scots call ‘fey’
about him as a soldier,” is the testimony of the
chaplain of the 165th Infantry, Father Duffy.
“He was absolutely the coolest and most indifferent
man in the face of danger I have ever seen. It was
not for lack of love of life, for he enjoyed his life as
a soldier—his only cross was distance from home.
It was partly from his inborn courage and devotion—he
would not stint his sacrifice—partly his deep
and real belief that what God wills is best.”
Once Marshal Foch’s advance began, Kilmer
seems to have been constantly in the thick of the
fighting. In the New York Evening Sun of August
8 a correspondent told how a party composed
of Major Donovan, Joyce Kilmer and John Kayes
advanced to the edge of a wood and captured a
German dressed in an American uniform.
“Joyce was one of those soldiers who had a romantic
love of death in battle,” Father Duffy has
added, “and it could not have missed him in time.”
No, the stars move in their appointed courses; and
there are certain things written aforetime. While96
he had life there was a defiant hope among us who
knew his great gift for triumph that somehow this
would see him through, that even over the inevitable
he would prevail. But Destiny would not have been
her immemorial self had she stayed her tragic hand
from this shining figure, type and symbol in his taking
of her unscrutable ways with man. And, somehow,
in his death his life was all of a piece, and one
cannot but admire the poetic justice of his end.
Never fear but in the skies
Saints and angels stand
Smiling with their holy eyes
On this new-come band
* * * * *
Your souls shall be where the heroes are
And your memory shine like the morning-star.
Sergeant Kilmer was killed in action near the
Ourcq, July 30, 1918. “He had,” runs the report
in The Stars and Stripes, the newspaper of the
American Expeditionary Force, “volunteered his
services to the major of the foremost battalion because
his own battalion would not be in the lead that
day.” From the report of Sergeant Esler and a
letter (printed in the New York Times) to a friend
in New York by Alexander Woollcott, dramatic97
critic of the Times before his service abroad, the
facts are established.
At the dawn of a misty Sunday, July 28, the
165th had made a gallant and irresistible charge
across the river and up the hill. In the height of
the great five days battle for the mastery of the
heights which followed Kilmer was killed. It so
happened that he was close to the Major when the
battalion adjutant fell and, in the emergency of the
battle, without commission or appointment, he was
serving as a sort of aid to the battalion commander.
Discovering that the woods ahead harboured some
machine guns, he had reported this fact, and was
sent in the lead of a patrol to establish their exact location.
When a couple of hours later the battalion
advanced into the woods to clear the spot of the enemy,
several of Kilmer’s comrades caught sight of
him lying, as if still scouting, with his eyes bent over
a little ridge. So like his living self he was, they
called to him, then ran up—to find him dead with a
bullet through his brain. He lies buried, we read,
beside Lieutenant Oliver Ames at the edge of a
little copse that is known as the Wood of the
Burned Bridge, so close to the purling Ourcq that,
standing by the graveside, one could throw a pebble
into its waters. Perhaps ten minutes walk to the98
north lies the half obliterated village Seringes, captured
by American troops the night before Kilmer
was killed. Eloquent of affection in the making of
it, the grave is of course, marked by a wooden cross,
on which is written, “Sergeant Joyce Kilmer.”
Then, after the inscription of his company and regiment,
is the line: “Killed in Action—July 30, 1918.”
It is not a rule to bury enlisted men with officers,
but Kilmer had won so much admiration and respect
not only from the enlisted men in his company
but also from the officers, that the commander of
the regiment authorised that his grave be dug on the
spot and that he be buried next to the grave of the
heroic Lieutenant who had just lost his life.
Sergeant Woollcott was with the regiment in the
woods the day they came out of the line to catch
their breaths, and the news of Kilmer’s death, he
says, “greeted me on every turn. The Captain
under whom he had been serving for several months,
the Major at whose side he fell, stray cooks, doughboys,
runners—all shook their heads sorrowfully
and talked among themselves of what a good soldier
he had been and what an infinite pity it was that the
bullet had had to single him out. And in such days
as these, there are no platitudes of polite regret.
When men, good men and close pals, are falling99
about you by hundreds, when every man in the regiment
has come out of the fight the poorer for the
loss of not one but many friends, there is no time
to say pretty things about a man just because he
exists no longer. Death is too common to distinguish
anyone. So the glowing praise and admiration
I heard for Joyce was real—every word of it.”
It is, I think, fitting to preserve in a form more
durable than its newspaper publication more of this
letter. It continues:
I gathered that his stock among men of all ranks
had been climbing steadily from the first days when
many of them, including myself, felt that he was out
of his own element in a rip-roaring regiment. As
the regiment’s laureate, they all knew him and they
knew, too, that he was at work on a history of the
regiment. He had become quite an institution, with
his arms full of maps as they used to be full of minor
poetry, and his mouth full of that imperishable pipe.
They all knew his verse. I found any number of
men who had only to fish around in their tattered
blouses to bring out the copy of a poem Kilmer
wrote in memory of some of their number who were
killed by a shell in March. You see that there is a
refrain which calls for bugle notes, and I am told
that at the funeral services, where the lines were first
read, the desperately sad notes of “Taps” sounded
faintly from a distant grave when the refrain invoked100
them. The lines were read by Joyce’s own
beloved Father Duffy, and those who were there
told me the tears streamed down the face of every
boy in the regiment. They just blubbered.
VIII
Indeed, such was the power of his spirit over
other men that even now he has become a legend,
his excellence a popular heritage, benefiting and
enriching human life. Writing with the pen of all
those who knew him in his overcoat of glory and
debonair hat, his friend Charles Willis Thompson
says: “I had a great affection and a deep admiration
and respect for him, different from that which
I had for anybody else I knew.” And expressing,
I think, the heart of innumerable ones who did not
chance his way, Booth Tarkington says: “But I had
a sense of him as of something fine and of fine
promise. I haven’t read much that he wrote; but
it was like knowing that there was a good picture
somewhere in a gallery that I hadn’t visited, but
might, some day.”
The full beauty of his life is known only to God.
As religion was the first thing in his life let it be the
last thing said of him. In one of his last letters,
he wrote to Sister M. Emerentia of St. Joseph’s101
College, Toronto, Ontario: “Pray that I may love
God more. It seems to me that if I can learn to love
God more passionately, more constantly, without
distractions, that absolutely nothing else can matter.
Except while we are in the trenches I receive Holy
Communion every morning, so it ought to be all the
easier for me to attain this object of my prayers.
I got Faith, you know, by praying for it. I hope to
get Love the same way.”
POEMS FROM FRANCE
In a wood they call the Rouge Bouquet
There is a new-made grave to-day,
Built by never a spade nor pick
Yet covered with earth ten metres thick.
There lie many fighting men,
Dead in their youthful prime,
Never to laugh nor love again
Nor taste the Summertime.
For Death came flying through the air
And stopped his flight at the dugout stair,
Touched his prey and left them there,
Clay to clay.
He hid their bodies stealthily
In the soil of the land they fought to free
And fled away.
Now over the grave abrupt and clear
Three volleys ring;
And perhaps their brave young spirits hear
The bugle sing:
“Go to sleep!
Go to sleep!
Slumber well where the shell screamed and fell.
106
Let your rifles rest on the muddy floor,
You will not need them any more.
Danger’s past;
Now at last,
Go to sleep!”
There is on earth no worthier grave
To hold the bodies of the brave
Than this place of pain and pride
Where they nobly fought and nobly died.
Never fear but in the skies
Saints and angels stand
Smiling with their holy eyes
On this new-come band.
St. Michael’s sword darts through the air
And touches the aureole on his hair
As he sees them stand saluting there,
His stalwart sons;
And Patrick, Brigid, Columkill
Rejoice that in veins of warriors still
The Gael’s blood runs.
And up to Heaven’s doorway floats,
From the wood called Rouge Bouquet,
A delicate cloud of buglenotes
That softly say:
“Farewell!
107
Farewell!
Comrades true, born anew, peace to you!
Your souls shall be where the heroes are
And your memory shine like the morning-star.
Brave and dear,
Shield us here.
Farewell!”
Upon his will he binds a radiant chain,
For Freedom’s sake he is no longer free.
It is his task, the slave of Liberty,
With his own blood to wipe away a stain.
That pain may cease, he yields his flesh to pain.
To banish war, he must a warrior be.
He dwells in Night, eternal Dawn to see,
And gladly dies, abundant life to gain.
What matters Death, if Freedom be not dead?
No flags are fair, if Freedom’s flag be furled.
Who fights for Freedom, goes with joyful tread
To meet the fires of Hell against him hurled,
And has for captain Him whose thorn-wreathed head
Smiles from the Cross upon a conquered world.
FACSIMILE REPRODUCTION OF AN AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT
OF THE LAST POEM WRITTEN BY JOYCE KILMER
109
PRAYER OF A SOLDIER IN FRANCE
My shoulders ache beneath my pack
(Lie easier, Cross, upon His back).
I march with feet that burn and smart
(Tread, Holy Feet, upon my heart).
Men shout at me who may not speak
(They scourged Thy back and smote Thy cheek).
I may not lift a hand to clear
My eyes of salty drops that sear.
(Then shall my fickle soul forget
Thy Agony of Bloody Sweat?)
My rifle hand is stiff and numb
(From Thy pierced palm red rivers come).
Lord, Thou didst suffer more for me
Than all the hosts of land and sea.
So let me render back again
This millionth of Thy gift. Amen.
110
WHEN THE SIXTY-NINTH COMES
BACK
The Sixty-ninth is on its way—France heard it long ago,
And the Germans know we’re coming, to give them blow for blow.
We’ve taken on the contract, and when the job is through
We’ll let them hear a Yankee cheer and an Irish ballad too.
The Harp that once through Tara’s Halls shall fill the air with song,
And the Shamrock be cheered as the port is neared by our triumphant throng.
With the Potsdam Palace on a truck and the Kaiser in a sack,
New York will be seen one Irish green when the Sixty-ninth comes back.
We brought back from the Border our Flag—’twas never lost;
We left behind the land we love, the stormy sea we crossed.
We heard the cry of Belgium, and France the free and fair,
For where there’s work for fighting-men, the Sixty-ninth is there.
The Harp that once through Tara’s Halls shall fill the air with song,
And the Shamrock be cheered as the port is neared by our triumphant throng.
With the Potsdam Palace on a truck and the Kaiser in a sack,
New York will be seen one Irish green when the Sixty-ninth comes back.
The men who fought at Marye’s Heights will aid us from the sky,
They showed the world at Fredericksburg how Irish soldiers die.
At Blackburn Ford they think of us, Atlanta and Bull Run;
There are many silver rings on the old flagstaff but there’s room for another one.
The Harp that once through Tara’s Halls shall fill the air with song,
And the Shamrock be cheered as the port is neared by our triumphant throng.
112
With the Potsdam Palace on a truck and the Kaiser in a sack,
New York will be seen one Irish green when the Sixty-ninth comes back.
God rest our valiant leaders dead, whom we cannot forget;
They’ll see the Fighting Irish are the Fighting Irish yet.
While Ryan, Roe, and Corcoran on History’s pages shine,
A wreath of laurel and shamrock waits the head of Colonel Hine.
The Harp that once through Tara’s Halls shall fill the air with song,
And the Shamrock be cheered as the port is neared by our triumphant throng.
With the Potsdam Palace on a truck and the Kaiser in a sack,
New York will be seen one Irish green when the Sixty-ninth comes back.
Many laughing ladies, leisurely and wise,
Low rich voice, delicate gay cries,
Tea in fragile china cups, ices, macaroons,
Sheraton and Heppelwhite and old thin spoons,
Rather dim paintings on very high walls,
Windows showing lawns whereon the sunlight falls,
Pink and silver gardens and broad kind trees,
And fountains scattering rainbows at the whim of a breeze,
Fragrance, mirth and gentleness, a Summer day
In a world that has forgotten everything but play.
POEMS AT HOME
Led by a star, a golden star,
The youngest star, an olden star,
Here the kings and the shepherds are,
Akneeling on the ground.
What did they come to the inn to see?
God in the Highest, and this is He,
A baby asleep on His mother’s knee
And with her kisses crowned.
Now is the earth a dreary place,
A troubled place, a weary place.
Peace has hidden her lovely face
And turned in tears away.
Yet the sun, through the war-cloud, sees
Babies asleep on their mother’s knees.
While there are love and home—and these—
There shall be Christmas Day.
118
MAIN STREET
(For S. M. L.)
I like to look at the blossomy track of the moon upon the sea,
But it isn’t half so fine a sight as Main Street used to be
When it all was covered over with a couple of feet of snow,
And over the crisp and radiant road the ringing sleighs would go.
Now, Main Street bordered with autumn leaves, it was a pleasant thing,
And its gutters were gay with dandelions early in the Spring;
I like to think of it white with frost or dusty in the heat,
Because I think it is humaner than any other street.
A city street that is busy and wide is ground by a thousand wheels,
And a burden of traffic on its breast is all it ever feels:
It is dully conscious of weight and speed and of work that never ends,
But it cannot be human like Main Street, and recognise its friends.
119
There were only about a hundred teams on Main Street in a day,
And twenty or thirty people, I guess, and some children out to play.
And there wasn’t a wagon or buggy, or a man or a girl or a boy
That Main Street didn’t remember, and somehow seem to enjoy.
The truck and the motor and trolley car and the elevated train
They make the weary city street reverberate with pain:
But there is yet an echo left deep down within my heart
Of the music the Main Street cobblestones made beneath a butcher’s cart.
God be thanked for the Milky Way that runs across the sky,
That’s the path that my feet would tread whenever I have to die.
Some folks call it a Silver Sword, and some a Pearly Crown,
But the only thing I think it is, is Main Street, Heaventown.
120
ROOFS
(For Amelia Josephine Burr)
The road is wide and the stars are out and the breath of the night is sweet,
And this is the time when wanderlust should seize upon my feet.
But I’m glad to turn from the open road and the starlight on my face,
And to leave the splendour of out-of-doors for a human dwelling place.
I never have seen a vagabond who really liked to roam
All up and down the streets of the world and not to have a home:
The tramp who slept in your barn last night and left at break of day
Will wander only until he finds another place to stay.
A gypsy-man will sleep in his cart with canvas overhead;
Or else he’ll go into his tent when it is time for bed.
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He’ll sit on the grass and take his ease so long as the sun is high,
But when it is dark he wants a roof to keep away the sky.
If you call a gypsy a vagabond, I think you do him wrong,
For he never goes a-travelling but he takes his home along.
And the only reason a road is good, as every wanderer knows,
Is just because of the homes, the homes, the homes to which it goes.
They say that life is a highway and its milestones are the years,
And now and then there’s a toll-gate where you buy your way with tears.
It’s a rough road and a steep road and it stretches broad and far,
But at last it leads to a golden Town where golden Houses are.
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THE SNOWMAN IN THE YARD
(For Thomas Augustine Daly)
The Judge’s house has a splendid porch, with pillars and steps of stone,
And the Judge has a lovely flowering hedge that came from across the seas;
In the Hales’ garage you could put my house and everything I own,
And the Hales have a lawn like an emerald and a row of poplar trees.
Now I have only a little house, and only a little lot,
And only a few square yards of lawn, with dandelions starred;
But when Winter comes, I have something there that the Judge and the Hales have not,
And it’s better worth having than all their wealth—it’s a snowman in the yard.
The Judge’s money brings architects to make his mansion fair;
The Hales have seven gardeners to make their roses grow;
The Judge can get his trees from Spain and France and everywhere,
And raise his orchids under glass in the midst of all the snow.
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But I have something no architect or gardener ever made,
A thing that is shaped by the busy touch of little mittened hands:
And the Judge would give up his lonely estate, where the level snow is laid
For the tiny house with the trampled yard, the yard where the snowman stands.
They say that after Adam and Eve were driven away in tears
To toil and suffer their life-time through, because of the sin they sinned,
The Lord made Winter to punish them for half their exiled years,
To chill their blood with the snow, and pierce their flesh with the icy wind.
But we who inherit the primal curse, and labour for our bread,
Have yet, thank God, the gift of Home, though Eden’s gate is barred:
And through the Winter’s crystal veil, Love’s roses blossom red,
For him who lives in a house that has a snowman in the yard.
124
A BLUE VALENTINE
(For Aline)
Monsignore,
Right Reverend Bishop Valentinus,
Sometime of Interamna, which is called Ferni,
Now of the delightful Court of Heaven,
I respectfully salute you,
I genuflect
And I kiss your episcopal ring.
It is not, Monsignore,
The fragrant memory of your holy life,
Nor that of your shining and joyous martyrdom,
Which causes me now to address you.
But since this is your august festival, Monsignore,
It seems appropriate to me to state
According to a venerable and agreeable custom,
That I love a beautiful lady.
Her eyes, Monsignore,
Are so blue that they put lovely little blue reflections
On everything that she looks at,
Such as a wall
Or the moon
Or my heart.
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It is like the light coming through blue stained glass,
Yet not quite like it,
For the blueness is not transparent,
Only translucent.
Her soul’s light shines through,
But her soul cannot be seen.
It is something elusive, whimsical, tender, wanton, infantile, wise
And noble.
She wears, Monsignore, a blue garment,
Made in the manner of the Japanese.
It is very blue—
I think that her eyes have made it more blue,
Sweetly staining it
As the pressure of her body has graciously given it form.
Loving her, Monsignore,
I love all her attributes;
But I believe
That even if I did not love her
I would love the blueness of her eyes,
And her blue garment, made in the manner of the Japanese.
Monsignore,
I have never before troubled you with a request.
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The saints whose ears I chiefly worry with my pleas are the most exquisite and maternal Brigid,
Gallant Saint Stephen, who puts fire in my blood,
And your brother bishop, my patron,
The generous and jovial Saint Nicholas of Bari.
But, of your courtesy, Monsignore,
Do me this favour:
When you this morning make your way
To the Ivory Throne that bursts into bloom with roses because of her who sits upon it,
When you come to pay your devoir to Our Lady,
I beg you, say to her:
“Madame, a poor poet, one of your singing servants yet on earth,
Has asked me to say that at this moment he is especially grateful to you
For wearing a blue gown.”
When you shall die and to the sky
Serenely, delicately go,
Saint Peter, when he sees you there,
Will clash his keys and say:
“Now talk to her, Sir Christopher!
And hurry, Michelangelo!
She wants to play at building,
And you’ve got to help her play!”
Every architect will help erect
A palace on a lawn of cloud,
With rainbow beams and a sunset roof,
And a level star-tiled floor;
And at your will you may use the skill
Of this gay angelic crowd,
When a house is made you will throw it down,
And they’ll build you twenty more.
For Christopher Wren and these other men
Who used to build on earth
Will love to go to work again
If they may work for you.
“This porch,” you’ll say, “should go this way!”
And they’ll work for all they’re worth,
And they’ll come to your palace every morning,
And ask you what to do.
And when night comes down on Heaven-town
(If there should be night up there)
You will choose the house you like the best
Of all that you can see:
And its walls will glow as you drowsily go
To the bed up the golden stair,
And I hope you’ll be gentle enough to keep
A room in your house for me.
I
Serene and beautiful and very wise,
Most erudite in curious Grecian lore,
You lay and read your learned books, and bore
A weight of unshed tears and silent sighs.
The song within your heart could never rise
Until love bade it spread its wings and soar.
Nor could you look on Beauty’s face before
A poet’s burning mouth had touched your eyes.
Love is made out of ecstasy and wonder;
Love is a poignant and accustomed pain.
It is a burst of Heaven-shaking thunder;
It is a linnet’s fluting after rain.
Love’s voice is through your song; above and under
And in each note to echo and remain.
II
Because Mankind is glad and brave and young,
Full of gay flames that white and scarlet glow,
All joys and passions that Mankind may know
By you were nobly felt and nobly sung.
Because Mankind’s heart every day is wrung
By Fate’s wild hands that twist and tear it so,
Therefore you echoed Man’s undying woe,
A harp Aeolian on Life’s branches hung.
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So did the ghosts of toiling children hover
About the piteous portals of your mind;
Your eyes, that looked on glory, could discover
The angry scar to which the world was blind:
And it was grief that made Mankind your lover,
And it was grief that made you love Mankind.
III
Before Christ left the Citadel of Light,
To tread the dreadful way of human birth,
His shadow sometimes fell upon the earth
And those who saw it wept with joy and fright.
“Thou art Apollo, than the sun more bright!”
They cried. “Our music is of little worth,
But thrill our blood with thy creative mirth,
Thou god of song, thou lord of lyric might!”
O singing pilgrim! who could love and follow
Your lover Christ, through even love’s despair,
You knew within the cypress-darkened hollow
The feet that on the mountain are so fair.
For it was Christ that was your own Apollo,
And thorns were in the laurel on your hair.
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APOLOGY
(For Eleanor Rogers Cox)
For blows on the fort of evil
That never shows a breach,
For terrible life-long races
To a goal no foot can reach,
For reckless leaps into darkness
With hands outstretched to a star,
There is jubilation in Heaven
Where the great dead poets are.
There is joy over disappointment
And delight in hopes that were vain.
Each poet is glad there was no cure
To stop his lonely pain.
For nothing keeps a poet
In his high singing mood
Like unappeasable hunger
For unattainable food.
So fools are glad of the folly
That made them weep and sing,
And Keats is thankful for Fanny Brawne
And Drummond for his king.
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They know that on flinty sorrow
And failure and desire
The steel of their souls was hammered
To bring forth the lyric fire.
Lord Byron and Shelley and Plunkett,
McDonough and Hunt and Pearse
See now why their hatred of tyrants
Was so insistently fierce.
Is Freedom only a Will-o’-the-wisp
To cheat a poet’s eye?
Be it phantom or fact, it’s a noble cause
In which to sing and to die!
So not for the Rainbow taken
And the magical White Bird snared
The poets sing grateful carols
In the place to which they have fared;
But for their lifetime’s passion,
The quest that was fruitless and long,
They chorus their loud thanksgiving
To the thorn-crowned Master of Song.
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THE PROUD POET
(For Shaemas O’Sheel)
One winter night a Devil came and sat upon my bed,
His eyes were full of laughter for his heart was full of crime.
“Why don’t you take up fancy work, or embroidery?” he said,
“For a needle is as manly a tool as a pen that makes a rhyme!”
“You little ugly Devil,” said I, “go back to Hell,
For the idea you express I will not listen to:
I have trouble enough with poetry and poverty as well,
Without having to pay attention to orators like you.
“When you say of the making of ballads and songs that it is woman’s work
You forget all the fighting poets that have been in every land.
There was Byron, who left all his lady-loves to fight against the Turk,
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And David, the Singing King of the Jews, who was born with a sword in his hand.
It was yesterday that Rupert Brooke went out to the Wars and died,
And Sir Philip Sidney’s lyric voice was as sweet as his arm was strong;
And Sir Walter Raleigh met the axe as a lover meets his bride,
Because he carried in his soul the courage of his song.
“And there is no consolation so quickening to the heart
As the warmth and whiteness that come from the lines of noble poetry.
It is strong joy to read it when the wounds of the spirit smart,
It puts the flame in a lonely breast where only ashes be.
It is strong joy to read it, and to make it is a thing
That exalts a man with a sacreder pride than any pride on earth.
For it makes him kneel to a broken slave and set his foot on a king,
And it shakes the walls of his little soul with the echo of God’s mirth.
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“There was the poet Homer had the sorrow to be blind,
Yet a hundred people with good eyes would listen to him all night;
For they took great enjoyment in the heaven of his mind,
And were glad when the old blind poet let them share his powers of sight.
And there was Heine lying on his mattress all day long,
He had no wealth, he had no friends, he had no joy at all,
Except to pour his sorrow into little cups of song,
And the world finds in them the magic wine that his broken heart let fall.
“And these are only a couple of names from a list of a thousand score
Who have put their glory on the world in poverty and pain.
And the title of poet’s a noble thing, worth living and dying for,
Though all the devils on earth and in Hell spit at me their disdain.
It is stern work, it is perilous work, to thrust your hand in the sun
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And pull out a spark of immortal flame to warm the hearts of men:
But Prometheus, torn by the claws and beaks whose task is never done,
Would be tortured another eternity to go stealing fire again.”
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LIONEL JOHNSON
(For the Rev. John J. Burke, C.S.P.)
There was a murkier tinge in London’s air
As if the honest fog blushed black for shame.
Fools sang of sin, for other fools’ acclaim,
And Milton’s wreath was tossed to Baudelaire.
The flowers of evil blossomed everywhere,
But in their midst a radiant lily came,
Candescent, pure, a cup of living flame,
Bloomed for a day, and left the earth more fair.
And was it Charles, thy “fair and fatal King,”
Who bade thee welcome to the lovely land?
Or did Lord David cease to harp and sing
To take in his thine emulative hand?
Or did Our Lady’s smile shine forth, to bring
Her lyric Knight within her choir to stand?
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FATHER GERARD HOPKINS, S.J.
Why didst thou carve thy speech laboriously,
And match and blend thy words with curious art?
For Song, one saith, is but a human heart
Speaking aloud, undisciplined and free.
Nay, God be praised, Who fixed thy task for thee!
Austere, ecstatic craftsman, set apart
From all who traffic in Apollo’s mart,
On thy phrased paten shall the Splendour be!
Now, carelessly we throw a rhyme to God,
Singing His praise when other songs are done.
But thou, who knewest paths Teresa trod,
Losing thyself, what is it thou hast won?
O bleeding feet, with peace and glory shod!
O happy moth, that flew into the Sun!
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GATES AND DOORS
(For Richardson Little Wright)
There was a gentle hostler
(And blessèd be his name!)
He opened up the stable
The night Our Lady came.
Our Lady and Saint Joseph,
He gave them food and bed,
And Jesus Christ has given him
A glory round his head.
So let the gate swing open
However poor the yard,
Lest weary people visit you
And find their passage barred;
Unlatch the door at midnight
And let your lantern’s glow
Shine out to guide the traveller’s feet
To you across the snow.
There was a courteous hostler
(He is in Heaven to-night)
He held Our Lady’s bridle
And helped her to alight;
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He spread clean straw before her
Whereon she might lie down,
And Jesus Christ has given him
An everlasting crown.
Unlock the door this evening
And let your gate swing wide,
Let all who ask for shelter
Come speedily inside.
What if your yard be narrow?
What if your house be small?
There is a Guest is coming
Will glorify it all.
There was a joyous hostler
Who knelt on Christmas morn
Beside the radiant manger
Wherein his Lord was born.
His heart was full of laughter,
His soul was full of bliss
When Jesus, on His Mother’s lap,
Gave him His hand to kiss.
Unbar your heart this evening
And keep no stranger out,
Take from your soul’s great portal
The barrier of doubt.
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To humble folk and weary
Give hearty welcoming,
Your breast shall be to-morrow
The cradle of a King.
142
THE ROBE OF CHRIST
(For Cecil Chesterton)
At the foot of the Cross on Calvary
Three soldiers sat and diced,
And one of them was the Devil
And he won the Robe of Christ.
When the Devil comes in his proper form
To the chamber where I dwell,
I know him and make the Sign of the Cross
Which drives him back to Hell.
And when he comes like a friendly man
And puts his hand in mine,
The fervour in his voice is not
From love or joy or wine.
And when he comes like a woman,
With lovely, smiling eyes,
Black dreams float over his golden head
Like a swarm of carrion flies.
Now many a million tortured souls
In his red halls there be:
Why does he spend his subtle craft
In hunting after me?
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Kings, queens and crested warriors
Whose memory rings through time,
These are his prey, and what to him
Is this poor man of rhyme,
That he, with such laborious skill,
Should change from rôle to rôle,
Should daily act so many a part
To get my little soul?
Oh, he can be the forest,
And he can be the sun,
Or a buttercup, or an hour of rest
When the weary day is done.
I saw him through a thousand veils,
And has not this sufficed?
Now, must I look on the Devil robed
In the radiant Robe of Christ?
He comes, and his face is sad and mild,
With thorns his head is crowned;
There are great bleeding wounds in his feet,
And in each hand a wound.
How can I tell, who am a fool,
If this be Christ or no?
Those bleeding hands outstretched to me!
Those eyes that love me so!
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I see the Robe—I look—I hope—
I fear—but there is one
Who will direct my troubled mind;
Christ’s Mother knows her Son.
O Mother of Good Counsel, lend
Intelligence to me!
Encompass me with wisdom,
Thou Tower of Ivory!
“This is the Man of Lies,” she says,
“Disguised with fearful art:
He has the wounded hands and feet
But not the wounded heart.”
Beside the Cross on Calvary
She watched them as they diced.
She saw the Devil join the game
And win the Robe of Christ.
145
THE SINGING GIRL
(For the Rev. Edward F. Garesché, S.J.)
There was a little maiden
In blue and silver drest,
She sang to God in Heaven
And God within her breast.
It flooded me with pleasure,
It pierced me like a sword,
When this young maiden sang: “My soul
Doth magnify the Lord.”
The stars sing all together
And hear the angels sing,
But they said they had never heard
So beautiful a thing.
Saint Mary and Saint Joseph,
And Saint Elizabeth,
Pray for us poets now
And at the hour of death.
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THE ANNUNCIATION
(For Helen Parry Eden)
“Hail Mary, full of grace,” the Angel saith.
Our Lady bows her head, and is ashamed;
She has a Bridegroom Who may not be named,
Her mortal flesh bears Him Who conquers death.
Now in the dust her spirit grovelleth;
Too bright a Sun before her eyes has flamed,
Too fair a herald joy too high proclaimed,
And human lips have trembled in God’s breath.
O Mother-Maid, thou art ashamed to cover
With thy white self, whereon no stain can be,
Thy God, Who came from Heaven to be thy Lover,
Thy God, Who came from Heaven to dwell in thee.
About thy head celestial legions hover,
Chanting the praise of thy humility.
147
ROSES
(For Katherine Brègy)
I went to gather roses and twine them in a ring,
For I would make a posy, a posy for the King.
I got an hundred roses, the loveliest there be,
From the white rose vine and the pink rose bush and from the red rose tree.
But when I took my posy and laid it at His feet
I found He had His roses a million times more sweet.
There was a scarlet blossom upon each foot and hand,
And a great pink rose bloomed from His side for the healing of the land.
Now of this fair and awful King there is this marvel told,
That He wears a crown of linkèd thorns instead of one of gold.
Where there are thorns are roses, and I saw a line of red,
A little wreath of roses around His radiant head.
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A red rose is His Sacred Heart, a white rose is His face,
And His breath has turned the barren world to a rich and flowery place.
He is the Rose of Sharon, His gardener am I,
And I shall drink His fragrance in Heaven when I die.
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THE VISITATION
(For Louise Imogen Guiney)
There is a wall of flesh before the eyes
Of John, who yet perceives and hails his King.
It is Our Lady’s painful bliss to bring
Before mankind the Glory of the skies.
Her cousin feels her womb’s sweet burden rise
And leap with joy, and she comes forth to sing,
With trembling mouth, her words of welcoming.
She knows her hidden God, and prophesies.
Saint John, pray for us, weary souls that tarry
Where life is withered by sin’s deadly breath.
Pray for us, whom the dogs of Satan harry,
Saint John, Saint Anne, and Saint Elizabeth.
And, Mother Mary, give us Christ to carry
Within our hearts, that we may conquer death.
150
MULTIPLICATION
(For S. M. E.)
I take my leave, with sorrow, of Him I love so well;
I look my last upon His small and radiant prison-cell;
O happy lamp! to serve Him with never ceasing light!
O happy flame! to tremble forever in His sight!
I leave the holy quiet for the loudly human train,
And my heart that He has breathed upon is filled with lonely pain.
O King, O Friend, O Lover! What sorer grief can be
In all the reddest depths of Hell than banishment from Thee?
But from my window as I speed across the sleeping land
I see the towns and villages wherein His houses stand.
Above the roofs I see a cross outlined against the night,
And I know that there my Lover dwells in His sacramental might.
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Dominions kneel before Him, and Powers kiss His feet,
Yet for me He keeps His weary watch in the turmoil of the street:
The King of Kings awaits me, wherever I may go,
O who am I that He should deign to love and serve me so?
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THANKSGIVING
(For John Bunker)
The roar of the world is in my ears.
Thank God for the roar of the world!
Thank God for the mighty tide of fears
Against me always hurled!
Thank God for the bitter and ceaseless strife,
And the sting of His chastening rod!
Thank God for the stress and the pain of life,
And Oh, thank God for God!
153
THE THORN
(For the Rev. Charles L. O’Donnell, C.S.C.)
The garden of God is a radiant place,
And every flower has a holy face:
Our Lady like a lily bends above the cloudy sod,
But Saint Michael is the thorn on the rose-bush of God.
David is the song upon God’s lips,
And Our Lady is the goblet that He sips:
And Gabriel’s the breath of His command,
But Saint Michael is the sword in God’s right hand.
The Ivory Tower is fair to see,
And may her walls encompass me!
But when the Devil comes with the thunder of his might,
Saint Michael, show me how to fight!
The boom and blare of the big brass band is cheering to my heart
And I like the smell of the trampled grass and elephants and hay.
I take off my hat to the acrobat with his delicate, strong art,
And the motley mirth of the chalk-faced clown drives all my care away.
I wish I could feel as they must feel, these players brave and fair,
Who nonchalantly juggle death before a staring throng.
It must be fine to walk a line of silver in the air
And to cleave a hundred feet of space with a gesture like a song.
Sir Henry Irving never knew a keener, sweeter thrill
Than that which stirs the breast of him who turns his painted face
To the circling crowd who laugh aloud and clap hands with a will
As a tribute to the clown who won the great wheel-barrow race.
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Now, one shall work in the living rock with a mallet and a knife,
And another shall dance on a big white horse that canters round a ring,
By another’s hand shall colours stand in similitude of life;
And the hearts of the three shall be moved by one mysterious high thing.
For the sculptor and the acrobat and the painter are the same.
They know one hope, one fear, one pride, one sorrow and one mirth,
And they take delight in the endless fight for the fickle world’s acclaim;
For they worship art above the clouds and serve her on the earth.
But you, who can build of the stubborn rock no form of loveliness,
Who can never mingle the radiant hues to make a wonder live,
Who can only show your little woe to the world in a rhythmic dress—
What kind of a counterpart of you does the three-ring circus give?
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Well—here in a little side-show tent to-day some people stand,
One is a giant, one a dwarf, and one has a figured skin,
And each is scarred and seared and marred by Fate’s relentless hand,
And each one shows his grief for pay, with a sort of pride therein.
You put your sorrow into rhyme and want the world to look;
You sing the news of your ruined hope and want the world to hear;
Their woe is pent in a canvas tent and yours in a printed book.
O, poet of the broken heart, salute your brothers here!
157
MID-OCEAN IN WAR-TIME
(For My Mother)
The fragile splendour of the level sea,
The moon’s serene and silver-veilèd face,
Make of this vessel an enchanted place
Full of white mirth and golden sorcery.
Now, for a time, shall careless laughter be
Blended with song, to lend song sweeter grace,
And the old stars, in their unending race,
Shall heed and envy young humanity.
And yet to-night, a hundred leagues away,
These waters blush a strange and awful red.
Before the moon, a cloud obscenely grey
Rises from decks that crash with flying lead.
And these stars smile their immemorial way
On waves that shroud a thousand newly dead!
158
QUEEN ELIZABETH SPEAKS
My hands were stained with blood, my heart was proud and cold,
My soul is black with shame ... but I gave Shakespeare gold.
So after æons of flame, I may, by grace of God,
Rise up to kiss the dust that Shakespeare’s feet have trod.
159
IN MEMORY OF RUPERT BROOKE
In alien earth, across a troubled sea,
His body lies that was so fair and young.
His mouth is stopped, with half his songs unsung;
His arm is still, that struck to make men free.
But let no cloud of lamentation be
Where, on a warrior’s grave, a lyre is hung.
We keep the echoes of his golden tongue,
We keep the vision of his chivalry.
So Israel’s joy, the loveliest of kings,
Smote now his harp, and now the hostile horde.
To-day the starry roof of Heaven rings
With psalms a soldier made to praise his Lord;
And David rests beneath Eternal wings,
Song on his lips, and in his hand a sword.
160
THE NEW SCHOOL
(For My Mother)
The halls that were loud with the merry tread of young and careless feet
Are still with a stillness that is too drear to seem like holiday,
And never a gust of laughter breaks the calm of the dreaming street
Or rises to shake the ivied walls and frighten the doves away.
The dust is on book and on empty desk, and the tennis-racquet and balls
Lie still in their lonely locker and wait for a game that is never played,
And over the study and lecture-room and the river and meadow falls
A stern peace, a strange peace, a peace that War has made.
For many a youthful shoulder now is gay with an epaulet,
And the hand that was deft with a cricket-bat is defter with a sword,
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And some of the lads will laugh to-day where the trench is red and wet,
And some will win on the bloody field the accolade of the Lord.
They have taken their youth and mirth away from the study and playing-ground
To a new school in an alien land beneath an alien sky;
Out in the smoke and roar of the fight their lessons and games are found,
And they who were learning how to live are learning how to die.
And after the golden day has come and the war is at an end,
A slab of bronze on the chapel wall will tell of the noble dead.
And every name on that radiant list will be the name of a friend,
A name that shall through the centuries in grateful prayers be said.
And there will be ghosts in the old school, brave ghosts with laughing eyes,
On the field with a ghostly cricket-bat, by the stream with a ghostly rod;
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They will touch the hearts of the living with a flame that sanctifies,
A flame that they took with strong young hands from the altar-fires of God.
163
EASTER WEEK
(In memory of Joseph Mary Plunkett)
(“Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone,
It’s with O’Leary in the grave.”)
William Butler Yeats.
“Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone,
It’s with O’Leary in the grave.”
Then, Yeats, what gave that Easter dawn
A hue so radiantly brave?
There was a rain of blood that day,
Red rain in gay blue April weather.
It blessed the earth till it gave birth
To valour thick as blooms of heather.
Romantic Ireland never dies!
O’Leary lies in fertile ground,
And songs and spears throughout the years
Rise up where patriot graves are found.
Immortal patriots newly dead
And ye that bled in bygone years,
What banners rise before your eyes?
What is the tune that greets your ears?
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The young Republic’s banners smile
For many a mile where troops convene.
O’Connell Street is loudly sweet
With strains of Wearing of the Green.
The soil of Ireland throbs and glows
With life that knows the hour is here
To strike again like Irishmen
For that which Irishmen hold dear.
Lord Edward leaves his resting place
And Sarsfield’s face is glad and fierce.
See Emmet leap from troubled sleep
To grasp the hand of Padraic Pearse!
There is no rope can strangle song
And not for long death takes his toll.
No prison bars can dim the stars
Nor quicklime eat the living soul.
Romantic Ireland is not old.
For years untold her youth will shine.
Her heart is fed on Heavenly bread,
The blood of martyrs is her wine.
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THE CATHEDRAL OF RHEIMS
(From the French of Émile Verhaeren)
He who walks through the meadows of Champagne
At noon in Fall, when leaves like gold appear,
Sees it draw near
Like some great mountain set upon the plain,
From radiant dawn until the close of day,
Nearer it grows
To him who goes
Across the country. When tall towers lay
Their shadowy pall
Upon his way,
He enters, where
The solid stone is hollowed deep by all
Its centuries of beauty and of prayer.
Ancient French temple! thou whose hundred kings
Watch over thee, emblazoned on thy walls,
Tell me, within thy memory-hallowed halls
What chant of triumph, or what war-song rings?
Thou hast known Clovis and his Frankish train,
Whose mighty hand Saint Remy’s hand did keep
And in thy spacious vault perhaps may sleep
An echo of the voice of Charlemagne.
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For God thou hast known fear, when from His side
Men wandered, seeking alien shrines and new,
But still the sky was bountiful and blue
And thou wast crowned with France’s love and pride.
Sacred thou art, from pinnacle to base;
And in thy panes of gold and scarlet glass
The setting sun sees thousandfold his face;
Sorrow and joy, in stately silence pass
Across thy walls, the shadow and the light;
Around thy lofty pillars, tapers white
Illuminate, with delicate sharp flames,
The brows of saints with venerable names,
And in the night erect a fiery wall.
A great but silent fervour burns in all
Those simple folk who kneel, pathetic, dumb,
And know that down below, beside the Rhine—
Cannon, horses, soldiers, flags in line—
With blare of trumpets, mighty armies come.
Suddenly, each knows fear;
Swift rumours pass, that every one must hear,
The hostile banners blaze against the sky
And by the embassies mobs rage and cry.
Now war has come, and peace is at an end.
On Paris town the German troops descend.
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They are turned back, and driven to Champagne.
And now, as to so many weary men,
The glorious temple gives them welcome, when
It meets them at the bottom of the plain.
At once, they set their cannon in its way.
There is no gable now, nor wall
That does not suffer, night and day,
As shot and shell in crushing torrents fall.
The stricken tocsin quivers through the tower;
The triple nave, the apse, the lonely choir
Are circled, hour by hour,
With thundering bands of fire
And Death is scattered broadcast among men.
And then
That which was splendid with baptismal grace;
The stately arches soaring into space,
The transepts, columns, windows gray and gold,
The organ, in whose tones the ocean rolled,
The crypts, of mighty shades the dwelling places,
The Virgin’s gentle hands, the Saints’ pure faces,
All, even the pardoning hands of Christ the Lord
Were struck and broken by the wanton sword
Of sacrilegious lust.
O beauty slain, O glory in the dust!
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Strong walls of faith, most basely overthrown!
The crawling flames, like adders glistening
Ate the white fabric of this lovely thing.
Now from its soul arose a piteous moan,
The soul that always loved the just and fair.
Granite and marble loud their woe confessed,
The silver monstrances that Popes had blessed,
The chalices and lamps and crosiers rare
Were seared and twisted by a flaming breath;
The horror everywhere did range and swell,
The guardian Saints into this furnace fell,
Their bitter tears and screams were stilled in death.
Around the flames armed hosts are skirmishing,
The burning sun reflects the lurid scene;
The German army, fighting for its life,
Rallies its torn and terrified left wing;
And, as they near this place
The imperial eagles see
Before them in their flight,
Here, in the solemn night,
The old cathedral, to the years to be
Showing, with wounded arms, their own disgrace.
169
KINGS
(For the Rev. James B. Dollard)
The Kings of the earth are men of might,
And cities are burned for their delight,
And the skies rain death in the silent night,
And the hills belch death all day!
But the King of Heaven, Who made them all,
Is fair and gentle, and very small;
He lies in the straw, by the oxen’s stall—
Let them think of Him to-day!
170
THE WHITE SHIPS AND THE RED
(For Alden March)
With drooping sail and pennant
That never a wind may reach,
They float in sunless waters
Beside a sunless beach.
Their mighty masts and funnels
Are white as driven snow,
And with a pallid radiance
Their ghostly bulwarks glow.
Here is a Spanish galleon
That once with gold was gay,
Here is a Roman trireme
Whose hues outshone the day.
But Tyrian dyes have faded,
And prows that once were bright
With rainbow stains wear only
Death’s livid, dreadful white.
White as the ice that clove her
That unforgotten day,
Among her pallid sisters
The grim Titanic lay.
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And through the leagues above her
She looked aghast, and said:
“What is this living ship that comes
Where every ship is dead?”
The ghostly vessels trembled
From ruined stern to prow;
What was this thing of terror
That broke their vigil now?
Down through the startled ocean
A mighty vessel came,
Not white, as all dead ships must be,
But red, like living flame!
The pale green waves about her
Were swiftly, strangely dyed,
By the great scarlet stream that flowed
From out her wounded side.
And all her decks were scarlet
And all her shattered crew.
She sank among the white ghost ships
And stained them through and through.
The grim Titanic greeted her.
“And who art thou?” she said;
“Why dost thou join our ghostly fleet
Arrayed in living red?
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We are the ships of sorrow
Who spend the weary night,
Until the dawn of Judgment Day,
Obscure and still and white.”
“Nay,” said the scarlet visitor,
“Though I sink through the sea,
A ruined thing that was a ship,
I sink not as did ye.
For ye met with your destiny
By storm or rock or fight,
So through the lagging centuries
Ye wear your robes of white.
“But never crashing iceberg
Nor honest shot of foe,
Nor hidden reef has sent me
The way that I must go.
My wound that stains the waters,
My blood that is like flame,
Bear witness to a loathly deed,
A deed without a name.
“I went not forth to battle,
I carried friendly men,
The children played about my decks,
The women sang—and then—
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And then—the sun blushed scarlet
And Heaven hid its face,
The world that God created
Became a shameful place!
“My wrong cries out for vengeance,
The blow that sent me here
Was aimed in Hell. My dying scream
Has reached Jehovah’s ear.
Not all the seven oceans
Shall wash away that stain;
Upon a brow that wears a crown
I am the brand of Cain.”
When God’s great voice assembles
The fleet on Judgment Day,
The ghosts of ruined ships will rise
In sea and strait and bay.
Though they have lain for ages
Beneath the changeless flood,
They shall be white as silver,
But one—shall be like blood.
174
THE TWELVE-FORTY-FIVE
(For Edward J. Wheeler)
Within the Jersey City shed
The engine coughs and shakes its head.
The smoke, a plume of red and white,
Waves madly in the face of night.
And now the grave incurious stars
Gleam on the groaning hurrying cars.
Against the kind and awful reign
Of darkness, this our angry train,
A noisy little rebel, pouts
Its brief defiance, flames and shouts—
And passes on, and leaves no trace.
For darkness holds its ancient place,
Serene and absolute, the king
Unchanged, of every living thing.
The houses lie obscure and still
In Rutherford and Carlton Hill.
Our lamps intensify the dark
Of slumbering Passaic Park.
And quiet holds the weary feet
That daily tramp through Prospect Street.
What though we clang and clank and roar
Through all Passaic’s streets? No door
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Will open, not an eye will see
Who this loud vagabond may be.
Upon my crimson cushioned seat,
In manufactured light and heat,
I feel unnatural and mean.
Outside the towns are cool and clean;
Curtained awhile from sound and sight
They take God’s gracious gift of night.
The stars are watchful over them.
On Clifton as on Bethlehem
The angels, leaning down the sky,
Shed peace and gentle dreams. And I—
I ride, I blasphemously ride
Through all the silent countryside.
The engine’s shriek, the headlight’s glare,
Pollute the still nocturnal air.
The cottages of Lake View sigh
And sleeping, frown as we pass by.
Why, even strident Paterson
Rests quietly as any nun.
Her foolish warring children keep
The grateful armistice of sleep.
For what tremendous errand’s sake
Are we so blatantly awake?
What precious secret is our freight?
What king must be abroad so late?
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Perhaps Death roams the hills to-night
And we rush forth to give him fight.
Or else, perhaps, we speed his way
To some remote unthinking prey.
Perhaps a woman writhes in pain
And listens—listens for the train!
The train, that like an angel sings,
The train, with healing on its wings.
Now “Hawthorne!” the conductor cries.
My neighbor starts and rubs his eyes.
He hurries yawning through the car
And steps out where the houses are.
This is the reason of our quest!
Not wantonly we break the rest
Of town and village, nor do we
Lightly profane night’s sanctity.
What Love commands the train fulfills,
And beautiful upon the hills
Are these our feet of burnished steel.
Subtly and certainly I feel
That Glen Rock welcomes us to her
And silent Ridgewood seems to stir
And smile, because she knows the train
Has brought her children back again.
We carry people home—and so
God speeds us, wheresoe’er we go.
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Hohokus, Waldwick, Allendale
Lift sleepy heads to give us hail.
In Ramsey, Mahwah, Suffern stand
Houses that wistfully demand
A father—son—some human thing
That this, the midnight train, may bring.
The trains that travel in the day
They hurry folks to work or play.
The midnight train is slow and old,
But of it let this thing be told,
To its high honor be it said,
It carries people home to bed.
My cottage lamp shines white and clear.
God bless the train that brought me here.
A few long-hoarded pennies in his hand,
Behold him stand;
A kilted Hedonist, perplexed and sad.
The joy that once he had,
The first delight of ownership is fled.
He bows his little head.
Ah, cruel Time, to kill
That splendid thrill!
Then in his tear-dimmed eyes
New lights arise.
He drops his treasured pennies on the ground,
They roll and bound
And scattered, rest.
Now with what zest
He runs to find his errant wealth again!
So unto men
Doth God, depriving that He may bestow.
Fame, health and money go,
But that they may, new found, be newly sweet.
Yea, at His feet
Sit, waiting us, to their concealment bid,
All they, our lovers, whom His Love hath hid.
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Lo, comfort blooms on pain, and peace on strife,
And gain on loss.
What is the key to Everlasting Life?
A blood-stained Cross.
180
TREES
(For Mrs. Henry Mills Alden)
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear
A 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.
181
STARS
(For the Rev. James J. Daly, S.J.)
Bright stars, yellow stars, flashing through the air,
Are you errant strands of Lady Mary’s hair?
As she slits the cloudy veil and bends down through,
Do you fall across her cheeks and over heaven too?
Gay stars, little stars, you are little eyes,
Eyes of baby angels playing in the skies.
Now and then a wingéd child turns his merry face
Down toward the spinning world—what a funny place!
Jesus Christ came from the Cross (Christ receive my soul!)
In each perfect hand and foot there was a bloody hole.
Four great iron spikes there were, red and never dry,
Michael plucked them from the Cross and set them in the sky.
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Christ’s Troop, Mary’s Guard, God’s own men,
Draw your swords and strike at Hell and strike again.
Every steel-born spark that flies where God’s battles are,
Flashes past the face of God, and is a star.
183
OLD POETS
(For Robert Cortes Holliday)
If I should live in a forest
And sleep underneath a tree,
No grove of impudent saplings
Would make a home for me.
I’d go where the old oaks gather,
Serene and good and strong,
And they would not sigh and tremble
And vex me with a song.
The pleasantest sort of poet
Is the poet who’s old and wise,
With an old white beard and wrinkles
About his kind old eyes.
For these young flippertigibbets
A-rhyming their hours away
They won’t be still like honest men
And listen to what you say.
The young poet screams forever
About his sex and his soul;
But the old man listens, and smokes his pipe,
And polishes its bowl.
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There should be a club for poets
Who have come to seventy year.
They should sit in a great hall drinking
Red wine and golden beer.
They would shuffle in of an evening,
Each one to his cushioned seat,
And there would be mellow talking
And silence rich and sweet.
There is no peace to be taken
With poets who are young,
For they worry about the wars to be fought
And the songs that must be sung.
But the old man knows that he’s in his chair
And that God’s on His throne in the sky.
So he sits by the fire in comfort
And he lets the world spin by.
Why is that wanton gossip Fame
So dumb about this man’s affairs?
Why do we twitter at his name
Who come to buy his curious wares?
Here is a shop of wonderment.
From every land has come a prize;
Rich spices from the Orient,
And fruit that knew Italian skies,
And figs that ripened by the sea
In Smyrna, nuts from hot Brazil,
Strange pungent meats from Germany,
And currants from a Grecian hill.
He is the lord of goodly things
That make the poor man’s table gay,
Yet of his worth no minstrel sings
And on his tomb there is no bay.
Perhaps he lives and dies unpraised,
This trafficker in humble sweets,
Because his little shops are raised
By thousands in the city streets.
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Yet stars in greater numbers shine,
And violets in millions grow,
And they in many a golden line
Are sung, as every child must know.
Perhaps Fame thinks his worried eyes,
His wrinkled, shrewd, pathetic face,
His shop, and all he sells and buys
Are desperately commonplace.
Well, it is true he has no sword
To dangle at his booted knees.
He leans across a slab of board,
And draws his knife and slices cheese.
He never heard of chivalry,
He longs for no heroic times;
He thinks of pickles, olives, tea,
And dollars, nickels, cents and dimes.
His world has narrow walls, it seems;
By counters is his soul confined;
His wares are all his hopes and dreams,
They are the fabric of his mind.
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Yet—in a room above the store
There is a woman—and a child
Pattered just now across the floor;
The shopman looked at him and smiled.
For, once he thrilled with high romance
And turned to love his eager voice.
Like any cavalier of France
He wooed the maiden of his choice.
And now deep in his weary heart
Are sacred flames that whitely burn.
He has of Heaven’s grace a part
Who loves, who is beloved in turn.
And when the long day’s work is done,
(How slow the leaden minutes ran!)
Home, with his wife and little son,
He is no huckster, but a man!
And there are those who grasp his hand,
Who drink with him and wish him well.
O in no drear and lonely land
Shall he who honours friendship dwell.
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And in his little shop, who knows
What bitter games of war are played?
Why, daily on each corner grows
A foe to rob him of his trade.
He fights, and for his fireside’s sake;
He fights for clothing and for bread:
The lances of his foemen make
A steely halo round his head.
He decks his window artfully,
He haggles over paltry sums.
In this strange field his war must be
And by such blows his triumph comes.
What if no trumpet sounds to call
His arméd legions to his side?
What if to no ancestral hall
He comes in all a victor’s pride?
The scene shall never fit the deed.
Grotesquely wonders come to pass.
The fool shall mount an Arab steed
And Jesus ride upon an ass.
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This man has home and child and wife
And battle set for every day.
This man has God and love and life;
These stand, all else shall pass away.
O Carpenter of Nazareth,
Whose mother was a village maid,
Shall we, Thy children, blow our breath
In scorn on any humble trade?
Have pity on our foolishness
And give us eyes, that we may see
Beneath the shopman’s clumsy dress
The splendour of humanity!
190
SERVANT GIRL AND GROCER’S BOY
Her lips’ remark was: “Oh, you kid!”
Her soul spoke thus (I know it did):
“O king of realms of endless joy,
My own, my golden grocer’s boy,
I am a princess forced to dwell
Within a lonely kitchen cell,
While you go dashing through the land
With loveliness on every hand.
Your whistle strikes my eager ears
Like music of the choiring spheres.
The mighty earth grows faint and reels
Beneath your thundering wagon wheels.
How keenly, perilously sweet
To cling upon that swaying seat!
How happy she who by your side
May share the splendours of that ride!
Ah, if you will not take my hand
And bear me off across the land,
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Then, traveller from Arcady,
Remain awhile and comfort me.
What other maiden can you find
So young and delicate and kind?”
Her lips’ remark was: “Oh, you kid!”
Her soul spoke thus (I know it did).
From what old ballad, or from what rich frame
Did you descend to glorify the earth?
Was it from Chaucer’s singing book you came?
Or did Watteau’s small brushes give you birth?
Nothing so exquisite as that slight hand
Could Raphael or Leonardo trace.
Nor could the poets know in Fairyland
The changing wonder of your lyric face.
I would possess a host of lovely things,
But I am poor and such joys may not be.
So God who lifts the poor and humbles kings
Sent loveliness itself to dwell with me.
When I am tired of earnest men,
Intense and keen and sharp and clever,
Pursuing fame with brush or pen,
Or counting metal disks forever,
Then from the halls of Shadowland,
Beyond the trackless purple sea,
Old Martin’s ghost comes back to stand
Beside my desk and talk to me.
Still on his delicate pale face
A quizzical thin smile is showing,
His cheeks are wrinkled like fine lace,
His kind blue eyes are gay and glowing.
He wears a brilliant-hued cravat,
A suit to match his soft grey hair,
A rakish stick, a knowing hat,
A manner blithe and debonair.
How good that he who always knew
That being lovely was a duty,
Should have gold halls to wander through
And should himself inhabit beauty.
How like his old unselfish way
To leave those halls of splendid mirth
And comfort those condemned to stay
Upon the dull and sombre earth.
Some people ask: “What cruel chance
Made Martin’s life so sad a story?”
Martin? Why, he exhaled romance,
And wore an overcoat of glory.
A fleck of sunlight in the street,
A horse, a book, a girl who smiled,
Such visions made each moment sweet
For this receptive ancient child.
Because it was old Martin’s lot
To be, not make, a decoration,
Shall we then scorn him, having not
His genius of appreciation?
Rich joy and love he got and gave;
His heart was merry as his dress;
Pile laurel wreaths upon his grave
Who did not gain, but was, success!
Severe against the pleasant arc of sky
The great stone box is cruelly displayed.
The street becomes more dreary from its shade,
And vagrant breezes touch its walls and die.
Here sullen convicts in their chains might lie,
Or slaves toil dumbly at some dreary trade.
How worse than folly is their labour made
Who cleft the rocks that this might rise on high!
Yet, as I look, I see a woman’s face
Gleam from a window far above the street.
This is a house of homes, a sacred place,
By human passion made divinely sweet.
How all the building thrills with sudden grace
Beneath the magic of Love’s golden feet!
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AS WINDS THAT BLOW AGAINST A
STAR
(For Aline)
Now by what whim of wanton chance
Do radiant eyes know sombre days?
And feet that shod in light should dance
Walk weary and laborious ways?
But rays from Heaven, white and whole,
May penetrate the gloom of earth;
And tears but nourish, in your soul,
The glory of celestial mirth.
The darts of toil and sorrow, sent
Against your peaceful beauty, are
As foolish and as impotent
As winds that blow against a star.
Within the broken Vatican
The murdered Pope is lying dead.
The soldiers of Valerian
Their evil hands are wet and red.
Unarmed, unmoved, St. Laurence waits,
His cassock is his only mail.
The troops of Hell have burst the gates,
But Christ is Lord, He shall prevail.
They have encompassed him with steel,
They spit upon his gentle face,
He smiles and bleeds, nor will reveal
The Church’s hidden treasure-place.
Ah, faithful steward, worthy knight,
Well hast thou done. Behold thy fee!
Since thou hast fought the goodly fight
A martyr’s death is fixed for thee.
St. Laurence, pray for us to bear
The faith which glorifies thy name.
St. Laurence, pray for us to share
The wounds of Love’s consuming flame.
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TO A YOUNG POET WHO KILLED
HIMSELF
When you had played with life a space
And made it drink and lust and sing,
You flung it back into God’s face
And thought you did a noble thing.
“Lo, I have lived and loved,” you said,
“And sung to fools too dull to hear me.
Now for a cool and grassy bed
With violets in blossom near me.”
Well, rest is good for weary feet,
Although they ran for no great prize;
And violets are very sweet,
Although their roots are in your eyes.
But hark to what the earthworms say
Who share with you your muddy haven:
“The fight was on—you ran away.
You are a coward and a craven.
“The rug is ruined where you bled;
It was a dirty way to die!
To put a bullet through your head
And make a silly woman cry!
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You could not vex the merry stars
Nor make them heed you, dead or living.
Not all your puny anger mars
God’s irresistible forgiving.
“Yes, God forgives and men forget,
And you’re forgiven and forgotten.
You might be gaily sinning yet
And quick and fresh instead of rotten.
And when you think of love and fame
And all that might have come to pass,
Then don’t you feel a little shame?
And don’t you think you were an ass?”
200
MEMORIAL DAY
“Dulce et decorum est”
The bugle echoes shrill and sweet,
But not of war it sings to-day.
The road is rhythmic with the feet
Of men-at-arms who come to pray.
The roses blossom white and red
On tombs where weary soldiers lie;
Flags wave above the honoured dead
And martial music cleaves the sky.
Above their wreath-strewn graves we kneel,
They kept the faith and fought the fight.
Through flying lead and crimson steel
They plunged for Freedom and the Right.
May we, their grateful children, learn
Their strength, who lie beneath this sod,
Who went through fire and death to earn
At last the accolade of God.
In shining rank on rank arrayed
They march, the legions of the Lord;
He is their Captain unafraid,
The Prince of Peace ... Who brought a sword.
Not on the lute, or harp of many strings
Shall all men praise the Master of all song.
Our life is brief, one saith, and art is long;
And skilled must be the laureates of kings.
Silent, O lips that utter foolish things!
Rest, awkward fingers striking all notes wrong!
How from your toil shall issue, white and strong,
Music like that God’s chosen poet sings?
There is one harp that any hand can play,
And from its strings what harmonies arise!
There is one song that any mouth can say,—
A song that lingers when all singing dies.
When on their beads our Mother’s children pray,
Immortal music charms the grateful skies.
Homer, they tell us, was blind and could not see the beautiful faces
Looking up into his own and reflecting the joy of his dream,
Yet did he seem
Gifted with eyes that could follow the gods to their holiest places.
I have no vision of gods, not of Eros with love-arrows laden,
Jupiter thundering death or of Juno his white-breasted queen,
Yet have I seen
All of the joy of the world in the innocent heart of a maiden.
Now is the rhymer’s honest trade
A thing for scornful laughter made.
The merchant’s sneer, the clerk’s disdain,
These are the burden of our pain.
Because of you did this befall,
You brought this shame upon us all.
You little poets mincing there
With women’s hearts and women’s hair!
How sick Dan Chaucer’s ghost must be
To hear you lisp of “Poesie”!
A heavy-handed blow, I think,
Would make your veins drip scented ink.
You strut and smirk your little while
So mildly, delicately vile!
Your tiny voices mock God’s wrath,
You snails that crawl along His path!
Why, what has God or man to do
With wet, amorphous things like you?
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This thing alone you have achieved:
Because of you, it is believed
That all who earn their bread by rhyme
Are like yourselves, exuding slime.
Oh, cease to write, for very shame,
Ere all men spit upon our name!
Take up your needles, drop your pen,
And leave the poet’s craft to men!
205
LOVE’S LANTERN
(For Aline)
Because the road was steep and long
And through the dark and lonely land,
God set upon my lips a song
And put a lantern in my hand.
Through miles on weary miles of night
That stretch relentless in my way
My lantern burns serene and white,
An unexhausted cup of day.
O golden lights and lights like wine,
How dim your boasted splendours are.
Behold this little lamp of mine;
It is more starlike than a star!
206
ST. ALEXIS
Patron of Beggars
We who beg for bread as we daily tread
Country lane and city street,
Let us kneel and pray on the broad highway
To the saint with the vagrant feet.
Our altar light is a buttercup bright,
And our shrine is a bank of sod,
But still we share St. Alexis’ care,
The Vagabond of God.
They gave him a home in purple Rome
And a princess for his bride,
But he rowed away on his wedding day
Down the Tiber’s rushing tide.
And he came to land on the Asian strand
Where the heathen people dwell;
As a beggar he strayed and he preached and prayed
And he saved their souls from hell.
Bowed with years and pain he came back again
To his father’s dwelling place.
There was none to see who this tramp might be,
For they knew not his bearded face.
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But his father said, “Give him drink and bread
And a couch underneath the stair.”
So Alexis crept to his hole and slept.
But he might not linger there.
For when night came down on the seven-hilled town,
And the emperor hurried in,
Saying, “Lo, I hear that a saint is near
Who will cleanse us of our sin,”
Then they looked in vain where the saint had lain,
For his soul had fled afar,
From his fleshly home he had gone to roam
Where the gold-paved highways are.
We who beg for bread as we daily tread
Country lane and city street,
Let us kneel and pray on the broad highway
To the saint with the vagrant feet.
Our altar light is a buttercup bright,
And our shrine is a bank of sod,
But still we share St. Alexis’ care,
The Vagabond of God!
What distant mountains thrill and glow
Beneath our Lady Folly’s tread?
Why has she left us, wise in woe,
Shrewd, practical, uncomforted?
We cannot love or dream or sing,
We are too cynical to pray,
There is no joy in anything
Since Lady Folly went away.
Many a knight and gentle maid,
Whose glory shines from years gone by,
Through ignorance was unafraid
And as a fool knew how to die.
Saint Folly rode beside Jehanne
And broke the ranks of Hell with her,
And Folly’s smile shone brightly on
Christ’s plaything, Brother Juniper.
Our minds are troubled and defiled
By study in a weary school.
O for the folly of the child!
The ready courage of the fool!
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Lord, crush our knowledge utterly
And make us humble, simple men;
And cleansed of wisdom, let us see
Our Lady Folly’s face again.
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MADNESS
(For Sara Teasdale)
The lonely farm, the crowded street,
The palace and the slum,
Give welcome to my silent feet
As, bearing gifts, I come.
Last night a beggar crouched alone,
A ragged helpless thing;
I set him on a moonbeam throne—
To-day he is a king.
Last night a king in orb and crown
Held court with splendid cheer;
To-day he tears his purple gown
And moans and shrieks in fear.
Not iron bars, nor flashing spears,
Not land, nor sky, nor sea,
Nor love’s artillery of tears
Can keep mine own from me.
Serene, unchanging, ever fair,
I smile with secret mirth
And in a net of mine own hair
I swing the captive earth.
Vain is the chiming of forgotten bells
That the wind sways above a ruined shrine.
Vainer his voice in whom no longer dwells
Hunger that craves immortal Bread and Wine.
Light songs we breathe that perish with our breath
Out of our lips that have not kissed the rod.
They shall not live who have not tasted death.
They only sing who are struck dumb by God.
No longer of Him be it said,
“He hath no place to lay His head.”
In every land a constant lamp
Flames by His small and mighty camp.
There is no strange and distant place
That is not gladdened by His face.
And every nation kneels to hail
The Splendour shining through Its veil.
Cloistered beside the shouting street,
Silent, He calls me to His feet.
Imprisoned for His love of me,
He makes my spirit greatly free.
And through my lips that uttered sin
The King of Glory enters in.
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TO A BLACKBIRD AND HIS MATE
WHO DIED IN THE SPRING
(For Kenton)
An iron hand has stilled the throats
That throbbed with loud and rhythmic glee
And dammed the flood of silver notes
That drenched the world in melody.
The blosmy apple boughs are yearning
For their wild choristers’ returning,
But no swift wings flash through the tree.
Ye that were glad and fleet and strong,
Shall Silence take you in her net?
And shall Death quell that radiant song
Whose echo thrills the meadow yet?
Burst the frail web about you clinging
And charm Death’s cruel heart with singing
Till with strange tears his eyes are wet.
The scented morning of the year
Is old and stale now ye are gone.
No friendly songs the children hear
Among the bushes on the lawn.
When babies wander out a-Maying
Will ye, their bards, afar be straying?
Unhymned by you, what is the dawn?
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Nay, since ye loved ye cannot die.
Above the stars is set your nest.
Through Heaven’s fields ye sing and fly
And in the trees of Heaven rest.
And little children in their dreaming
Shall see your soft black plumage gleaming
And smile, by your clear music blest.
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THE FOURTH SHEPHERD
(For Thomas Walsh)
I
On nights like this the huddled sheep
Are like white clouds upon the grass,
And merry herdsmen guard their sleep,
And chat and watch the big stars pass.
It is a pleasant thing to lie
Upon the meadow on the hill
With kindly fellowship near by
Of sheep and men of gentle will.
I lean upon my broken crook
And dream of sheep and grass and men—
O shameful eyes that cannot look
On any honest thing again!
On bloody feet I clambered down
And fled the wages of my sin,
I am the leavings of the town,
And meanly serve its meanest inn.
I tramp the courtyard stones in grief,
While sleep takes man and beast to her.
And every cloud is calling “Thief!”
And every star calls “Murderer!”
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The hand of God is sure and strong,
Nor shall a man forever flee
The bitter punishment of wrong.
The wrath of God is over me!
With ashen bread and wine of tears
Shall I be solaced in my pain.
I wear through black and endless years
Upon my brow the mark of Cain.
Poor vagabond, so old and mild,
Will they not keep him for a night?
And She, a woman great with child,
So frail and pitiful and white.
Good people, since the tavern door
Is shut to you, come here instead.
See, I have cleansed my stable floor
And piled fresh hay to make a bed.
Here is some milk and oaten cake.
Lie down and sleep and rest you fair,
Nor fear, O simple folk, to take
The bounty of a child of care.
On nights like this the huddled sheep—
I never saw a night so fair.
How huge the sky is, and how deep!
And how the planets flash and glare!
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At dawn beside my drowsy flock
What wingéd music I have heard!
But now the clouds with singing rock
As if the sky were turning bird.
O blinding Light, O blinding Light!
Burn through my heart with sweetest pain.
O flaming Song, most loudly bright,
Consume away my deadly stain!
The stable glows against the sky,
And who are these that throng the way?
My three old comrades hasten by
And shining angels kneel and pray.
The door swings wide—I cannot go—
I must and yet I dare not see.
Lord, who am I that I should know—
Lord, God, be merciful to me!
O Whiteness, whiter than the fleece
Of new-washed sheep on April sod!
O Breath of Life, O Prince of Peace,
O Lamb of God, O Lamb of God!
The air is like a butterfly
With frail blue wings.
The happy earth looks at the sky
And sings.
Serene he stands, with mist serenely crowned,
And draws a cloak of trees about his breast.
The thunder roars but cannot break his rest
And from his rugged face the tempests bound.
He does not heed the angry lightning’s wound,
The raging blizzard is his harmless guest,
And human life is but a passing jest
To him who sees Time spin the years around.
But fragile souls, in skyey reaches find
High vantage-points and view him from afar.
How low he seems to the ascended mind,
How brief he seems where all things endless are;
This little playmate of the mighty wind,
This young companion of an ancient star.
220
THE HOUSE WITH NOBODY IN IT
Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track
I go by a poor old farmhouse with its shingles broken and black.
I suppose I’ve passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for a minute
And look at the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in it.
I never have seen a haunted house, but I hear there are such things;
That they hold the talk of spirits, their mirth and sorrowings.
I know this house isn’t haunted, and I wish it were, I do;
For it wouldn’t be so lonely if it had a ghost or two.
This house on the road to Suffern needs a dozen panes of glass,
And somebody ought to weed the walk and take a scythe to the grass.
It needs new paint and shingles, and the vines should be trimmed and tied;
But what it needs the most of all is some people living inside.
221
If I had a lot of money and all my debts were paid
I’d put a gang of men to work with brush and saw and spade.
I’d buy that place and fix it up the way it used to be
And I’d find some people who wanted a home and give it to them free.
Now, a new house standing empty, with staring window and door,
Looks idle, perhaps, and foolish, like a hat on its block in the store.
But there’s nothing mournful about it; it cannot be sad and lone
For the lack of something within it that it has never known.
But a house that has done what a house should do, a house that has sheltered life,
That has put its loving wooden arms around a man and his wife,
A house that has echoed a baby’s laugh and held up his stumbling feet,
Is the saddest sight, when it’s left alone, that ever your eyes could meet.
So whenever I go to Suffern along the Erie track
I never go by the empty house without stopping and looking back,
222
Yet it hurts me to look at the crumbling roof and the shutters fallen apart,
For I can’t help thinking the poor old house is a house with a broken heart.
There’s a brook on the side of Greylock that used to be full of trout,
But there’s nothing there now but minnows; they say it is all fished out.
I fished there many a Summer day some twenty years ago,
And I never quit without getting a mess of a dozen, or so.
There was a man, Dave Lilly, who lived on the North Adams road,
And he spent all his time fishing, while his neighbors reaped and sowed.
He was the luckiest fisherman in the Berkshire hills, I think.
And when he didn’t go fishing he’d sit in the tavern and drink.
Well, Dave is dead and buried and nobody cares very much;
They have no use in Greylock for drunkards and loafers and such.
224
But I always liked Dave Lilly, he was pleasant as you could wish;
He was shiftless and good-for-nothing, but he certainly could fish.
The other night I was walking up the hill from Williamstown
And I came to the brook I mentioned, and I stopped on the bridge and sat down.
I looked at the blackened water with its little flecks of white
And I heard it ripple and whisper in the still of the Summer night.
And after I’d been there a minute it seemed to me I could feel
The presence of someone near me, and I heard the hum of a reel.
And the water was churned and broken, and something was brought to land
By a twist and flirt of a shadowy rod in a deft and shadowy hand.
I scrambled down to the brookside and hunted all about;
There wasn’t a sign of a fisherman; there wasn’t a sign of a trout.
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But I heard somebody chuckle behind the hollow oak
And I got a whiff of tobacco like Lilly used to smoke.
It’s fifteen years, they tell me, since anyone fished that brook;
And there’s nothing in it but minnows that nibble the bait off your hook.
But before the sun has risen and after the moon has set
I know that it’s full of ghostly trout for Lilly’s ghost to get.
I guess I’ll go to the tavern and get a bottle of rye
And leave it down by the hollow oak, where Lilly’s ghost went by.
I meant to go up on the hillside and try to find his grave
And put some flowers on it—but this will be better for Dave.
When Dawn strides out to wake a dewy farm
Across green fields and yellow hills of hay
The little twittering birds laugh in his way
And poise triumphant on his shining arm.
He bears a sword of flame but not to harm
The wakened life that feels his quickening sway
And barnyard voices shrilling “It is day!”
Take by his grace a new and alien charm.
But in the city, like a wounded thing
That limps to cover from the angry chase,
He steals down streets where sickly arc-lights sing,
And wanly mock his young and shameful face;
And tiny gongs with cruel fervour ring
In many a high and dreary sleeping place.
When on a novel’s newly printed page
We find a maudlin eulogy of sin,
And read of ways that harlots wander in,
And of sick souls that writhe in helpless rage;
Or when Romance, bespectacled and sage,
Taps on her desk and bids the class begin
To con the problems that have always been
Perplexed mankind’s unhappy heritage;
Then in what robes of honour habited
The laureled wizard of the North appears!
Who raised Prince Charlie’s cohorts from the dead,
Made Rose’s mirth and Flora’s noble tears,
And formed that shining legion at whose head
Rides Waverley, triumphant o’er the years!
EARLY POEMS
All day I serve among the volumes telling
Old tales of love and war and high romance;
Good company, God wot, is in them dwelling,
Brave knights who dared to scorn untoward chance.
King Arthur—Sidney—Copperfield—the daring
And friendly souls of Meredith’s bright page—
The Pilgrim on his darksome journey faring,
And Shakespeare’s heroes, great in love and rage.
Fair ladies, too—here Beatricè smiling
Through hell leads Dante to the happy stars;
And Heloise, the cruel guards beguiling,
With Abelard makes mock of convent bars.
Yet when night comes I leave these folks with pleasure
To open Love’s great summer-scented tome
Within whose pages—precious beyond measure—
My own White Flower Lady hath her home.
Slender your hands and soft and white
As petals of moon-kissed roses;
Yet the grasp of your fingers slight
My passionate heart encloses.
Innocent eyes like delicate spheres
That are born when day is dying;
Yet the wisdom of all the years
Is in their lovelight lying.
The Lady World
Is sleeping on her white and cloudy bed.
Like petals furled
Her eyelids close. Beside her dream-filled head
Her lover stands in silver cloak and shoon,
The faithful Moon.
So Love, my Love,
Sleep on, my Love, my Life, be not afraid.
The Moon above
Shall guard the World, and I my little maid.
Your life, your love, your dreams are mine to keep,
So sleep, so sleep.
Little white bird of the summer sky,
Silver against the golden sun,
Over the green of the hills you fly,
You and the sweet, wild air are one.
Glorious sights are in that far place
Reached by your daisy-petal wing,
Rose-coloured meteors dive through space,
Stars made of molten music sing.
Still, though your quivering eager flight
Reaches the groves by Heaven town,
Where all the angels cry out, “Alight!
Stop, little bird, come down, come down!”
Careless you speed over fields of stars,
Darting through Heaven swift and free;
Nothing your arrowy passage bars
Back to the earth and back to me.
Here in the orchard of dream-fruit fair
Out of my dreams is built your nest.
Blossoming dreams all the branches bear,
Fit for my silver dream-bird’s rest.
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Here, since they love you, the young stars shine,
Through the white petals come their beams.
Little white love-laden bird of mine,
Let them shine on you through my dreams.
If it should be my task, I being God,
From whirling atoms to evolve your mate,
With hands omnipotent I should create
A great-souled hero, with the starlight shod.
The subject worlds should tremble at his nod
And all the angel host upon him wait,
Yet he should leave his pomp and splendid state
And kneel to kiss the ground whereon you trod.
But God, who like a little child is wise,
Made me, a common thing of earthly clay;
Then bade me go and see within your eyes
The flame of love that burns more bright than day,
And as I looked I knew with wild surprise
I was transformed—your heart in my heart lay.
237
BALLADE OF MY LADY’S BEAUTY
Squire Adam had two wives, they say,
Two wives had he, for his delight,
He kissed and clypt them all the day
And clypt and kissed them all the night.
Now Eve like ocean foam was white
And Lilith roses dipped in wine,
But though they were a goodly sight
No lady is so fair as mine.
To Venus some folk tribute pay
And Queen of Beauty she is hight,
And Sainte Marie the world doth sway
In cerule napery bedight.
My wonderment these twain invite,
Their comeliness it is divine,
And yet I say in their despite,
No lady is so fair as mine.
Dame Helen caused a grievous fray,
For love of her brave men did fight,
The eyes of her made sages fey
And put their hearts in woful plight.
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To her no rhymes will I indite,
For her no garlands will I twine,
Though she be made of flowers and light
No lady is so fair as mine.
L’ENVOI
Prince Eros, Lord of lovely might
Who on Olympus dost recline,
Do I not tell the truth aright?
No lady is so fair as mine.
April with her violets,
May and June with roses,
Young July with all her flowers, crimson, gold and white,
Each in place her tribute sets,
Each her wreath composes,
Making glad the roadway for the Lady of Delight.
Birds with many colours gay,
Through the branches flitting,
Sing, to greet my Lady Love, a lusty welcome song.
Even bees make holiday,
Hive and honey quitting,
Tremulous and jubilant they join the eager throng.
Now the road is flower-paved;
Timid fawns are peering
From their pleasant vantage in the roadside’s leafy green.
All the world in sunlight laved,
Knows the hour is nearing
That shall bring the golden presence of the well-loved Queen.
Hark! at last the silver trill
Of a lute is sounding—
Happy August, purple-clad, appears with all her train.
Sudden sweet the branches fill;
Every heart is bounding;
August comes, the kindly nurse of her who is to reign!
And now, with proud and valiant gait,
An hundred centaurs come.
Pan rides the foremost one in state;
The waiting crowd grows dumb.
Each centaur wears a jewelled thong
And harness bright of sheen;
They draw through surging floods of song
The carriage of the Queen!
“Hail! Hail! Hail! to the Queen in her moonstone car!
Hail! Hail! Hail! to the Lady whose slaves we are!
We of the meadows, the rocks and the hills,
Dwellers in oceans and rivers and rills,
Beasts of the forests and birds of the air,
Linnet and butterfly, lion and bear,
Daisy and daffodill, spruce-tree and fir,
Yield to our Queen and do homage to her!
Hail! Hail! Hail! we welcome thy royal sway!
Hail! Hail! Hail! O Queen, on this festal day!”
So all the world kneels down to you,
And all things are your own;
Now let a humble rhymer sue
Before your crystal throne.
Fair Queen, at your rose-petal feet
Bid me to live and die!
Not all your world of lovers, Sweet,
Can love so much as I.
JOYCE KILMER, AGE 21
TAKEN IN ACADEMIC GOWN,
IMMEDIATELY AFTER HIS
GRADUATION, AND DIRECTLY
PRECEDING HIS MARRIAGE
Underneath the orchard trees lies a gypsy sleeping,
Tattered cloak and swarthy face and shaggy moonlit hair;
One brown hand his crazy fiddle in its grasp is keeping,
Through the Land of Dreams he strolls and sings his love songs there.
Up above the apple blossoms where the stars are shining,
Free and careless wandering among the clouds he goes,
Singing of his lady-love and for her pleasure twining
Wreaths of Heaven flowers, violet and golden rose.
In his sleep he stirs, and wakes to find his love beside him,
Pours his load of Dreamland blooms before her silver feet,
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Takes her in his arms and as her soft brown tresses hide him
Both together fare to Dreamland up the star-paved street.
Never a horn sounds in Sherwood to-night,
Friar Tuck’s drinking Olympian ale,
Little John’s wandered away from our sight,
Robin Hood’s bow hangs unused on its nail.
Even the moon has grown weary and pale
Sick for the glint of Maid Marian’s hair,
But there is one joy on mountain and dale,
Fairies abound all the time, everywhere!
Saints have attacked them with sacredest might,
They could not shatter their gossamer mail;
Steam-driven engines can never affright
Fairies who dance in their spark-sprinkled trail.
Still for a warning the sad Banshees wail,
Still are the Leprechauns ready to bear
Purses of gold to their captors for bail;
Fairies abound all the time, everywhere!
Oberon, king of the realms of delight,
May your domain over us never fail.
Mab, as a rainbow-hued butterfly bright,
Yours is the glory that age cannot stale.
245
When we are planted down under the shale,
Fairy-folk, drop a few daffodils there,
Comfort our souls in the Stygian vale;
Fairies abound all the time, everywhere.
L’ENVOI
White Flower Princess, though sophisters rail,
Let us be glad in faith that we share.
None shall the Good People safely assail;
Fairies abound all the time, everywhere!
246
LULLABY FOR A BABY FAIRY
Night is over; through the clover globes of crystal shine;
Birds are calling; sunlight falling on the wet green vine.
Little wings must folded lie, little lips be still
While the sun is in the sky, over Fairy Hill.
Sleep, sleep, sleep,
Baby with buttercup hair,
Golden rays
Into the violet creep.
Dream, dream deep;
Dream of the night-revels fair.
Daylight stays;
Sleep, little fairy child, sleep.
Rest in daytime; night is playtime, all good fairies know.
Under sighing grasses lying, off to slumber go.
Night will come with stars agleam, lilies in her hand,
Calling you from Hills of Dream back to Fairyland.
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Sleep, sleep, sleep,
Baby with buttercup hair;
Golden rays
Into the violet creep.
Dream, dream deep;
Dream of the night-revels fair.
Daylight stays;
Sleep, little fairy child, sleep.
Fair Death, kind Death, it was a gracious deed
To take that weary vagrant to thy breast.
Love, Song and Wine had he, and but one need—
Rest.
I sleep beneath a bracken sheet
In sunlight or in rain,
The road dust burns my naked feet,
The sunrays sear my brain;
But children love my fiddle’s sound
And if a lad be straying,
His mother knows he may be found
Where old Mad Larry’s playing.
O fiddle, let us follow, follow,
Till we see my Eileen’s face,
Through the moonlight like a swallow
Off she flew to some far place.
O, did you ever love a lass?
I loved a lass one day,
And she would lie upon the grass
And sing while I would play.
She was a cruel, lovely thing,
Nor heart nor soul have I,
For Eileen took them that soft spring
When she flew to the sky.
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So fiddle, let us follow, follow,
Till we see my Eileen’s face,
Through the moonlight like a swallow
Off she flew to some far place.
251
THE GRASS IN MADISON SQUARE
The pleasant turf is dried and marred and seared,
The grass is dead.
No soft green shoot, by rain and sunshine reared,
Lifts up its head.
I think the grass that made the park so gay
In early spring
Now decks the lawns of Heaven where babies play
And dance and sing.
And poor old vagabonds who now have left
The dusty street,
Find fields of which they were in life bereft,
Beneath their feet.
No flower hath so fair a face as this pale love of mine;
When he bends down to kiss my heart, my petals try to twine
About his lips to hold them fast. He is so very fair,
My lover with the pale, sad face and forest-fragrant hair.
I think it is a pleasant place, this garden where I grow,
With gravel walks and grassy mounds and crosses in a row.
There is no toil nor worry here, nor clatter of the street,
And here each night my lover comes, pale, sad and very sweet.
He never heeds the violets or lilies tall and white;
I am his love, his only love, his Flower of Delight;
And often when the cold moonbeams are lying all around
My lover kneels the whole night through beside me on the ground.
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How can I miss the sunshine-laden breezes of the south
When all my heart is burning with the kisses of his mouth?
How can I miss the coming of the comfort-bringing rain
When his hot tears are filling me with heaven-sweet love-pain?
There is a jealous little bird that envies me my love,
He sings this bitter, bitter song from his brown nest above:
“Was ever yet a mortal man who wed a flower wife?
He loves the girl down in your roots whose dead breast gives you life.”
O little bird, O jealous bird, fly off and cease your chatter!
My lover is my lover, and what can a dead girl matter?
In his hot kisses and sweet tears I shall my petals steep;
I am his love, his only love, I have his heart to keep.
He was an evil thing to see—
Of joy his mouth was desolate;
His body was a stunted tree,
His eyes were pools of lust and hate.
Now silverly the linnet sings
On leaves that from his temples start,
And gay the yellow crocus springs
From the rich clod that was his heart.
His mind has neither need nor power to know
The foolish things that men call right and wrong.
For him the streams of pleasant love-wind flow,
For him the mystic, sleep-compelling song.
Through love he rules his love-made universe,
And sees with eyes by ignorance made keen
The fauns and elves whom older eyes disperse,
Great Pan and all the fairies with their queen.
King gods, I pray, bestow on him this dole,
Not wisdom, wealth, nor mighty deeds to do,
But let him keep his happy pagan soul,
The poet-vision, simple, free and true,
To hunt the rainbow-gold and phantom lights,
And meet with dryads on the wooded heights.
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THE CLOUDED SUN
(To A. S.)
It is not good for poets to grow old,
For they serve Death that loves and Love that kills;
And Love and Death, enthroned above the hills,
Call back their faithful servants to the fold
Before Age makes them passionless and cold.
Therefore it is that no more sorry thing
Can shut the sunlight from the thirsty grass
Than some grey head through which no longer pass
Wild dreams more lively than the scent of Spring
To fire the blood and make the glad mouth sing.
Far happier he, who, young and full of pride
And radiant with the glory of the sun,
Leaves earth before his singing time is done.
All wounds of Time the graveyard flowers hide,
His beauty lives, as fresh as when he died.
Then through the words wherein his spirit dwells
The world may see his young impetuous face
Unmarred by Time, with undiminished grace;
While memory no piteous story tells
Of barren days, stale loves and broken spells.
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* * * * *
Brother and Master, we are wed with woe.
Yea, Grief’s funereal cloud it is that hovers
About the head of us, thy mournful lovers.
Uncomforted and sick with pain we go,
Dust on our brows and at our hearts the snow.
The London lights flare on the chattering street,
Young men and maidens love and dance and die;
Wine flows, and the perfumes float up to the sky.
Once thou couldst feel that this was very sweet,
Now thou art still—mouth, hands and weary feet.
O subtle mouth, whereon the Sphinx has placed
The smile of those she kisses at their birth,
Sing once again, for Spring has thrilled the earth.
Nay, thou art dumb. Not even April’s taste
Is sweet to thee in thy live coffin cased.
There is no harsher tragedy than this—
That thou, who feltest as no man before
Scent, colour, taste and sound and didst outpour
For us rich draughts of thine enchanted bliss
Shouldst be plunged down this cruel black abyss.
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Brother and Master, if our love could free
Thy flameborne spirit from its leaden chain,
Thou shouldst rise up from this sad house of pain,
Be young and fair as thou wast wont to be,
And strong with joy as is the boundless sea.
Brother and Master, at thy feet we lay
These roses, red as lips that thou hast sung,
To mingle with the green and fragrant bay,
And cypress wreaths above thy head are hung.
We kneel awhile, then turn in tears away.
Dreams fade with morning light;
Never a morn for thee,
Dreamer of dreams, good-night.
Over our earthly sight
Shadows of woe must be;
Dreams fade with morning light.
Soldiers awake to fight—
Thou art from strife set free,
Dreamer of dreams, good-night.
Day breaketh, cruel, white,
Lovely the forms that flee;
Dreams fade with morning light.
Thine is the sure delight,
Sleep-visions still to see,
Dreamer of dreams, good-night.
Pity us from thy height,
Dawn-haunted slaves are we;
Dreams fade with morning light,
Dreamer of dreams, good-night.
A gleam of light across the night,
I know that you are there;
The heavens show the lovely glow
Of your transcendent hair,
Your luminous, miraculous, and morning-coloured hair.
I’ll take my silver javelin
And point it with a star,
For I have vowed to climb a cloud
And reach to where you are.
My javelin’s barb shall pierce your hair
And pin it to the sky,
And I will run to the island sun
Where captive you will lie,
And then I shall dare to touch your hair,
To steal a tress of your magic hair,
And bring to the world a tress of hair
And win the world thereby.
Or shall I put on a green-sea cloak
With sunset laces trimmed,
And shine so gay that the dawn will say
That her radiance is dimmed?
There never was a lover could shine more fair
Than I in my cloak will shine;
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And all for the sake of your merry hair,
Your whimsical, perilous, golden hair,
Your lovely, terrible, golden hair,
More sweet than love or wine.
A twisted bit of silver
Fell down and bruised my face.
What was it broke my broidered cloak
And tore the sunset lace?
I must be clad in sorrow
Because you are so gay,
And close my eyes if I would see
A whiter light than day.
So lofty is your golden hair,
I cannot climb to touch your hair,
I must kneel down to find your hair
Upon the trampled way.
262
THE WAY OF LOVE
(An Old Legend)
When darkness hovers over earth
And day gives place to night,
Then lovers see the Milky Way
Gleam mystically bright,
And calling it the Way of Love
They hail it with delight.
She was a lady wondrous fair,
A right brave lover he,
And sooth they suffered grievous pain
And sorrowed mightily,
For they were parted during life
By leagues of land and sea.
She died. Then Death came to the man.
He met him joyfully,
And said, “Thou Angel Death, well met!
Quick, do thy will with me,
That I may haste to greet my love
In Heaven’s company.”
263
Now on one side of Heaven he dwelt
And on the other, she;
And broad between them stretched sheer space
Whereon no way might be,
The empty, yawning, awful depth,
Unplumbed infinity.
The deathless spheric melody
Came gently to his ear,
And dulcet notes, the harmonies
Of Seraphs chanting near.
He heeded not for listening
His lady’s voice to hear.
The Saints and Martyrs round him ranged
A goodly company,
The Virgin, robed in radiance,
The Holy Trinity.
He heeded not, but strained his eyes
His lady’s face to see.
At last from far across the void
Her voice came, faint and sweet.
The bright-hued walls of Paradise
Did the glad sound repeat;
The distant stars on which she stood
Shone bright beneath her feet.
264
“Dear Love,” she said, “Oh, come to me!
I cannot see your face.
O will not Lord Christ grant to us
To cross this sea of space?”
Then thrilled his heart with Love’s own might.
He answered, by Love’s grace.
“The world is wide, and Heaven is wide,
From me to thee is far,
Alas! across Infinity
No passageways there are.
Sweetheart, I’ll make my way to thee,
I’ll build it, star by star!”
Through all the curving vault of sky
His lusty blows rang out.
He smote the jewel-studded walls
And with a mighty shout
He tore the gleaming masonry
And posts that stood about.
He strove to build a massive bridge
That should the chasm span.
With heart upheld by hope and love
His great task he began,
And toiled and laboured doughtily
To work his God-like plan.
265
He took the heavy beams of gold
That round him he did see;
The beryl, jacinth, sardius,
That shone so brilliantly,
And no fair jewel would he spare
So zealously worked he.
He stole the gorgeous tinted stuffs
Whereof are sunsets made,
And his rude, grasping, eager hands
On little stars he laid;
To rob God’s sacred treasure-house
He was no whit afraid.
And so for centuries he worked.
Across the void at last
A bridge of precious mold did stand
Completed, strong and fast.
So now the faithful lovers met
And all their woe was past.
But soon a shining angel guard
Sped to the throne of gold
And said, “Lord, see yon new-made bridge,
A mortal, overbold,
Has built it, scorning thy desire!”
Straightway the tale he told.
266
Then said: “Now, Master, Thou mayst see
The thing that has been wrought.
Speak, then, the word, stretch forth Thine hand
That with the speed of thought
This poor presumptuous work may fall
And crumble into naught.”
God looked upon the angel then
And on the bridge below.
Then with His smile of majesty
He said: “Let all things know,
This bridge, which has by Love been built,
I will not overthrow.”
When darkness hovers over earth
And day gives place to night,
Then lovers see the Milky Way
Gleam mystically bright,
And calling it the Way of Love,
They hail it with delight.
There two roads cross by Chevely town
A man is lying dead.
The rumbling wains of scented hay
Roll over his fair head;
A stake is driven through his heart,
For his own blood he shed.
* * * * *
Among the pleasant flower-stars
By God’s own garden gate,
A little maid fresh come from earth
One summer night did wait;
Her poppy mouth dropped down with fear,
With fear her eyes were great.
The angels saw her sinless face,
The gate was opened wide.
She only shook her dawn-crowned head
And would not come inside.
She was alone, and so afraid—
She hid her face and cried.
268
Her tears dropped down like sun-filled rain
Through stars and starless space,
Until at last in Chevely town
Where in a moonlit place
Her lover knelt upon her grave,
They fell upon his face.
Said he, “My love, my only love,
My Elena, my Sweet!
Through what wild ways of mystery
Have strayed your little feet?
Alone, alone this lonely night
Where only spirits meet!
“It is not my bleak desert life
That turns my heart to lead,
Not for my empty arms I mourn,
Nor for my loveless bed;
But that you wander forth alone
On heights I may not tread.
“If I could stand beside you now,
Sin-burdened though I be,
I’d bear you through the trackless ways
From fear and danger free,
Not God himself could daunt the strong
Undying love of me!
269
“Though Heaven is a pleasant place,
What joy for you is there?
Who tread the jewelled streets alone
Without my heart to share
Each throb of your heart, and my arm
Around you, O my Fair!
“I hear your sobbing in the wind,
And in the summer rain
I feel your tears. My heart is pierced
With your sad, lonely pain.
My Love! My only Love! I come!
You shall not call in vain!”
* * * * *
Where two roads cross by Chevely town
A man is lying dead.
The rumbling wains of scented hay
Roll over his fair head;
A stake is driven through his heart,
For his own blood he shed.
I’m home from off the stormy sea,
And down the street
The folk come out to welcome me
On eager feet.
O neighbours, God be with you all,
But for my true love I must call;
She lingers in her father’s hall
So shy, so sweet!
Here is a string of milky pearls
For her to wear,
An amber comb to match the curls
Of her bright hair.
O neighbours, do not crowd me so!
Stand by! stand by! for I must go
To put on my love’s hand of snow
This gold ring fair.
Good dame, why do you block the way
And shake your head?
Must all the things you have to say
Just now be said?
O neighbours, let me pass—but why—
My God, what makes you women cry?
Come tell me that I too may die!
Is my love dead?
271
“Nay, Marjorie’s a living thing,
And fair and strong.
Yet did you wait to give your ring
A year too long.
To seek her love there came the Moon;
Now Marjorie at night and noon
Is chained and sits alone to croon
The Moon’s love-song.”
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling in the
Memoir were made
consistent when a predominant preference was found
in the original book; otherwise they were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced
quotation marks were remedied when the change was
obvious, and otherwise left unbalanced.
Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned
between paragraphs and outside quotations. In versions
of this eBook that support hyperlinks, the page
references in the List of Illustrations lead to the
corresponding illustrations.
Redundant Section title removed on the page before
page 17.
Page 70: “Little Orphant Annie” was printed that way.
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