Alfred Joyce Kilmer was an American writer and poet mainly remembered for a short poem titled “Trees” (1913), which was published in the collection Trees and Other Poems in 1914. Though a prolific poet whose works celebrated the common beauty of the natural world as well as his Roman Catholic religious faith, Kilmer was also a journalist, literary critic, lecturer, and editor. While most of his works are largely unknown today, a select few of his poems remain popular and are published frequently in anthologies. (via Wikipedia)
Lets read a few quotes and poems of Joyce Kilmer.
On Love:
Love is made out of ecstasy and wonder;
Love is a poignant and accustomed pain.
(From: In Memory)
On Life:
Our life is brief, one saith, and art is long;
And skilled must be the laureates of kings.
(From: The Rosary)
Saint John, pray for us, weary souls that tarry
Where life is withered by sin’s deadly breath.
(From: The Visitation)
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.
(From: Roofs)
On God:
The wrath of God is over me!
(From: The Fourth Shepherd)
On Nature:
The air is like a butterfly
With frail blue wings.
The happy earth looks at the sky
And sings.
(From: “Joyce Kilmer”)
On Poems:
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.
(From: Memoir and poems)
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
(From: Trees)
On Death:
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.
(From: Memoir and poems)
Things have a terrible permanence when people die.
Other Quotes:
At present, I am a poet trying to be a soldier. To tell the truth, I am not interested in writing nowadays, except in so far as writing is the expression of something beautiful … 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.
I suppose I 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.
The only reason a road is good as every wanderer knows / Is just because of the homes, the homes, the homes to which one goes.
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:
But Prometheus, torn by the claws and beaks whose task is never done, would be tortured another eternity to go stealing fire again.
In a wood they call the Rouge Bouquet,
There is a new-made grave today,
Built by never a spade nor pick,
Yet covered with earth ten meteres thick.
There lie many fighting men.
Dead in their youthful prime.