Sleep on, I lie at heaven’s high oriels,
Over the stars that murmur as they go
Lighting your lattice-window far below;
And every star some of the glory spells
Whereof I know.
I have forgotten you long, long ago,
Like the sweet silver singing of thin bells
Vanished, or music fading faint and low.
Sleep on, I lie at heaven’s high oriels,
Who loved you so.
_Joyce Kilmer_
(Alfred) Joyce Kilmer was born at New Brunswick, New Jersey,
December 6, 1886. He was graduated from Rutgers College in 1904 and
received his A.B. from Columbia in 1906. After leaving Columbia he
became, in rapid succession, instructor of Latin at Morristown High
School, editor of a journal for horsemen, book salesman,
book-reviewer, lexicographer, æsthete, interviewer, socialist and
churchman.
After Kilmer became converted to Catholicism, his conception of the
church was the Church Militant. “His thought,” writes his
biographer, Robert Cortes Holliday, “dwelt continually on
warrior-saints.... As he saw it, there was no question as to his
duty.” In 1917 Kilmer joined the Officers’ Reserve Training Corps,
but he soon resigned from this. In less than three weeks after
America entered the world war, he enlisted as a private in the
Seventh Regiment, National Guard, New York. Shortly before the
regiment left New York for Spartanburg, South Carolina, Kilmer was
transferred at his own request to the 165th Infantry. In spite of
his avowed militancy, Kilmer was “a poet trying to be a soldier;” he
made no effort to glorify war; his one hope was to wring some
spiritual satisfaction out of the brutality.
On July 28, 1918, the five-day battle for the mastery of the heights
beyond the river Ourcq was begun. Two days later, Sergeant Kilmer
was killed in action.
Death came before the poet had developed or even matured his gifts.
His first volume, _Summer of Love_ (1911), is wholly imitative; it
is full of reflections of a dozen other sources, “a broken bundle of
mirrors.” _Trees and Other Poems_ (1914) contains the title-poem by
which Kilmer is best known and, though various influences are still
strong (one cannot miss the borrowed accents of Patmore, Belloc,
Chesterton, Housman and—_vide_ “Martin”—E. A. Robinson), a
refreshing candor lights up the lines. _Main Street and Other Poems_
(1917) is less derivative; the simplicity is less self-conscious,
the ecstasy more spontaneous.
Besides his own poetry, Kilmer edited a selection of _Verses_ by
Hilaire Belloc (1916) and _Dreams and Images_, An Anthology of
Catholic poets (1917).