Chapter I: Front Matter

Transcriber’s Note: Italics are enclosed in _underscores_.

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

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

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, 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.

CONTENTS VOLUME ONE

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 153

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 212

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

ILLUSTRATIONS

JOYCE KILMER, AGE 30 _Frontispiece_

PAGE
FAC-SIMILE OF AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT OF “THE PEACEMAKER” 108

JOYCE KILMER, AGE 21 240

MEMOIR

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.