Joyce Kilmer

“ Holliday's memoir was less lovely than that of Keats and Severn, for instance. The beauty of any human intercourse is not measured by the plane on which it moves.
Pleasure and pain of a noble sort are woven in every fibre of this sparkling casting-up of the blithe [Pg 103] years. Pleasure indeed of the fullest, for the chronicle abounds in the surcharged hilarity and affectionate humour that we have grown to expect in any matters connected with Joyce Kilmer. The biographer dwells with loving and smiling particularity on the elvish phases of the young knight-errant. ”

“ It is not becoming to prate of what lies in other men's souls; we all have our secrecies and sanctuaries, rarely acknowledged even to ourselves. But no one can read Joyce Kilmer's poems without grasping his vigorous idealism, his keen sense of beauty, his devout and simple religion, his clutch on the [Pg 99] preciousness of common things. ”

“ Maxwell (coming in from the dining room)
Going? I hope you have a good time.
Helen
Yes, we’re going, but, Max, I want you to do264 something for me. You know Ryan better than I do and you can talk to him. Mr. Morris says that he’s been abusing his wife, and he thinks we ought to get him to put her into a model tenement where she can develop her soul. He’s been overworking her and all that sort of thing, so you talk to him about it, will you? Mr. Morris knows a place where she can go, and we can put the children somewhere, and he can go on with his work, and it will be better for everybody. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And when they are happy, as on the evening now under consideration, they sing to express their satisfaction with life. We sang “Sweet Rosie O’Grady.” We shook the kitchen-bedroom with the echoes of “Take Me Back to New York Town.” We informed Madame, Solange, Paul, Michel, in fact, the whole village, that we had never been a wanderer and that we longed for our Indiana home. We grew sentimental over “Mother Machree.” And Sergeant Reilly obliged with a reel—in his21 socks—to an accompaniment of whistling and hand-clapping. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Every day he meets someone from my outfit and asks after me and says he’s coming to see me. And some days ago I—riding on a truck—passed and was passed several times by his outfit. And I paged him, so to speak, unavailingly. Also numerous letters from the States tell me that young Father Charles O’Donnell is somewhere near. We’ll have a great reunion one of these days. I wish you’d be in it! But one of these nights I’ll143 jump off a freight at Prairie du Chien, break a pane of glass in a basement window and go to sleep in the Bishop’s room. ”

“ Satan finds mischief for idle hands to do. I suppose that is why the thought occurred to Joyce to get out a book of prose. So, as the professional literary term has it, he "pasted up" ten of his articles—that is, cut them out of the newspaper and stuck them column width down the middle of sheets of "copy" paper. He typed a title page, "The Circus and Other Essays," and submitted his manuscript to a publisher. It was promptly "turned down." Joyce again did up his manuscript, gummed on some fresh stamps, and again away it went to another leading publishing house. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Mr. Kemp has written many brief dramas and produced them with his own company at a small theater in New York, but it is in poetry that he has done his best work thus far. He has the true lyric quality, as shown in his two volumes, "Poems", and "The Passing God", 1919.
Kilmer, Aline (Mrs. Joyce Kilmer) . [1888-1941] (3) Born Norfolk, Va. Daughter of the poet Ada Foster Murray. Educated in public schools and at the Vail-Deane School of Elizabeth, N.J. Married in 1908 to Joyce Kilmer, who met death in France during the World War. Mrs. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Numerous letters written by Joyce to many of his friends, and kindly loaned by their owners to the publishers, were received too late for inclusion in the two-volume set of his poems, essays and letters. These letters continue in greater detail, and give the emphasis of cumulative effect, to the portrait of a beautiful and a joyous young manhood revealed by the letters which were printed. A man has only one life to live in this world, but (if he is anything like Kilmer) many friends. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ And just as Sleary's Circus was the cup of poetry which benevolent fate held twice to the parched lips of young Thomas Gradgrind's soul, so is the circus of our day, with its regiment of clowns, its roller-skating bears and dancing elephants, its radiant men and women who pirouette on horseback and dart above our heads like swallows, a most wholesome and invigorating tonic for a weary and prosaic generation. ”

“ Pushing my way through the chattering throng of my brown-clad mates to the rail of the troop-ship, I look at still water, greasy and opaque. A touch of sunlight makes it splendid with rainbows, a great prismatic expanse, beautiful, more beautiful than clear water could be. ”

“ The fragile splendour of the level sea, The moon's serene and silver-veiled 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Martin 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”