Joyce Kilmer

“ But there is no more reason for your own library to resemble a public library than there is for your study to resemble your office, or for your dining-room to resemble the Automat, or for every bedroom in your house to bear on its door printed directions to ring twice for your wife to bring you hot water and three times for a clean collar.
The crowning virtue of the successful private library is inefficiency. As an example closely approaching the ideal, as a model to householders who have been allowed a closet or vault in which to keep books, I respectfully present my own library. ”

“ He who, neglecting the productions of the symbolists, decadents, and similar phantasists, turns his attention to the authentic literature of the Belgian people, finds a strain of poetry white and beautiful, and as fervently Catholic as the immortal songs of Crashaw and Francis Thompson. It is not the disciples of Baudelaire and Mallarmé who have planted the seeds of poetry that soon shall burst into splendid bloom, but men like Thomas Braun and Georges Ramaekers, men who, serving faithfully their Muse, have never wavered in their allegiance to the Mistress of all the Arts, the Catholic Church. ”

“ Saint Michael, show me how to fight!
154
THE BIG TOP
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. ”

“ 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.
239
FOR A BIRTHDAY
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. ”

“ Ryan, woman is no longer your bond slave! You must have no more babies. You are killing your wife with soul-deadening drudgery. No janitor should have children; no janitor should have a wife. You must put Mrs. Ryan in a model tenement somewhere, and let her lead a normal, intellectual life. Society will care for the children. There are plenty of places where they can go and be studied by scientists and develop, perhaps, into useful members of the community. ”

“ If all the poetry of Belgium were the work of charlatans and vicious men, then, not even this tremendous war could stimulate it into healthy life. The fame of Maeterlinck’s dismal dramas, and of the least worthy poems of Emile Verhaeren, should not make us oblivious of the fact that Belgium has, and has always had, its small, but brilliant, company of sincere and gifted writers, men who have not debased their art, but have held in honour the sacred traditions of their high calling. ”

“ They are all men of education, and breeding, and humour, and we have fine times. Dangers shared together and hardships mutually borne develops in us a sort of friendship I never knew in civilian life, a friendship clean of jealousy and 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, or a truly timed bombardment with eight-inch guns. ”

“ Speaking of Poetry, I have read with exquisite relish, several times, the copy of the Bulletin you sent me. And always I stop reading—prevented from continuing by irresistible mirth. God help us! Let all the world, especially all of it that deals in thought, beat its breast and repeat after me “God help us.” Here are young men battling in a strange land to win back for the people of that land their decent homes. Here are French peasants (old men, children and women) kneeling at mass in a church with a yawning shell hole through the tower. Among them are American soldiers. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ That the great tragedy which has overtaken Belgium will have a beneficial effect upon its literature is not to be doubted. Of course, the first result is an almost total cessation of creative activity; one cannot handle a rifle and a pen at the same time. But with the return of peace must come the development of a new Belgian literature, a literature which is not an echo of the salon-philosophies of Paris and Berlin, but a beautiful expression of the soul of a strong and brave race. ”

“ It wasn’t a shell-proof job—nothing in a real regiment is. (Such jobs are in the Ordnance or Supply Departments, back of the lines.) It wasn’t shell-proof, I say, and if I should be squashed by a shell, wouldn’t you hate to have it said that I was nobly holding my post in the office, or bravely manning my typewriter? Now, I’m doing work I love—and work you may be proud of. None of the drudgery of soldiering, but a double share of glory and thrills. But it is not so glorious and thrilling as you. ”

“ I have very little chance to read contemporary poetry out here, but I hope it is 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 in God and His Son and the Holy Ghost, and in the Church which God Himself founded and still rules. France has turned to her ancient Faith with more passionate devotion than she has shown for centuries. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Morbid and mystic like his prose, Rodenbach’s poetry has a delicacy and a silvery tone that are inimitable. Out of almost nothing it weaves thoughts and calls up memories of wonderfully melancholy96 beauty. In it water is always stagnant, giving chill reflections of the sky through trees; lights are dim, footsteps noiseless; rooms are repositories of reminders of the past, where silence speaks to the heart through sad aspects. The extent to which Rodenbach uses such notes constitutes his originality. ”

“ To do him justice, he did not think of her great wealth. In fact, he did not like to think of her wealth, for that wealth came from her father’s success in a most unesthetic business. Grace was the daughter of “Try a Tin To-day” Mallon, who was known in the world of canned goods as the Salmon King.
There was no vulgar hand-clapping after the artists had finished their interpretation of Grace’s soul; but the Rev. Morris Gildell rattled his spoon against the sides of his teacup, while Mrs. Anna Watkins Wilbur sighed ecstatically and clanked her chain of heavy amber beads. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ But to return to our muttons, or, rather, to our geese and plum puddings, the most important thing for us to remember in the selection of Christmas presents is their suitability to the person for whom they are intended. We may like books, but let us not therefore feel obliged to sustain our literary reputation by giving books to our neighbour who wants a box of cigars or a jumping-jack. We have the precedent, furnished by Saint Nicholas, and we have a higher precedent still. For the first great Christmas gift to humanity was what humanity most needed, and always needs—a child. ”

“ It is possible that when the poets of a re-created Belgium are singing their clear songs, the world, comparing them with Gilkin, Giraud, Maeterlinck, and the Verhaeren of Les Débâcles and Les Flambeaux Noirs, will say: “Now, for the first time, Belgian poetry deserves the attention of those who are interested in other than the pathological aspects of literature! Not until the land had been purified by blood and flame did the Spirit of Beauty come to dwell in Flanders!” ”

“ They peer at your laden shelves and say: “It is better to have one good book than a dozen bad ones. Of any standard work you should have the definitive edition—not necessarily a rare imprint or something in fine binding, but the most modern and comprehensive edition. It is better to have one good anthology than a shelfful of third-rate poets. Go through your shelves and throw away all the rubbish; buy sets of the classics, a volume at a time, and in this way you will gradually build up a useful and really representative library, something appropriate and coherent.” ”

“ Hilaire Belloc, as I have said, is a Frenchman, an Englishman, an Oxford man, a country gentleman, a soldier, a democrat, and a practical journalist. In all these characters he utters his poetry. As a Frenchman, he is vivacious and gallant and quick. He has the noble English frankness, and that broad irresistible English mirthfulness which is so much more inclusive than that narrow possession, a sense of humour. Democrat though he is, there is about him something of the atmosphere of the country squire of some generations ago ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ He should be walking goldener floors than those of a mortal shop—he should rather be over here with us, whatever his convictions may be. For it is wrong for a poet—especially a Gael—to be listening to elevated trains when there are screaming shells to hear, and to be sleeping soft in a bed when there’s a cot in a dug-out awaiting him, and the bright face of danger to dream about, and see.
I treasure your picture, and Christopher’s shadowy profile—send me more photographs. Love me constantly, never let a day pass without going to church for me. ”

“ 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 as clear and cool as the time it celebrates; it is absolutely destitute of rhetorical indulgence, poetical inversions or “literary” phrasing. It is, in fact, conversation—inspired conversation, which is poetry. It might have been written by a Wordsworth not painfully self-conscious, or by a Blake whose brain was not as yet muddled with impressionistic metaphysics.
And his Christmas carols—they are fit to be sung by a chorus of children. Can any songs of the sort receive higher praise than that? Children, too, appreciate The Birds and Our Lord and Our Lady. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Of course there are exceptions to the rule that a giver should not give his own wares. Any man who deals in wares that are universally delightful may express himself in his gifts to his heart’s content and no one will criticise him. So let no brewer or cigar-maker or money-changer of my acquaintance puzzle his head long in the effort to discover in the marts of the world something appropriate to my peculiar tastes. These honest citizens may be as Emersonian in their giving as they wish. ”

“ 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? 143
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? ”