[Illustration]
I
I wonder if there is any other country where the death of a young
poet is double-column front-page news?
And if poets were able to proofread their own obits, I wonder if
any two lines would have given Joyce Kilmer more honest pride
than these:
JOYCE KILMER, POET,
IS KILLED IN ACTION
which gave many hearts a pang when they picked up the newspaper
last Sunday morning.
Joyce Kilmer died as he lived--"in action." He found life
intensely amusing, unspeakably interesting; his energy was
unlimited, his courage stout. He attacked life at all points,
rapidly gathered its complexities about him, and the more
intricate it became the more zestful he found it. Nothing
bewildered him, nothing terrified. By the time he was thirty he
had attained an almost unique position in literary circles. He
lectured on poetry, he interviewed famous men of letters, he was
poet, editor, essayist, critic, anthologist. He was endlessly
active, full of delightful mirth and a thousand schemes for
outwitting the devil of necessity that hunts all brainworkers.
Nothing could quench him. He was ready to turn out a poem, an
essay, a critical article, a lecture, at a few minutes' notice.
He had been along all the pavements of Grub Street, perhaps the
most exciting place of breadwinning known to the civilized man.
From his beginning as a sales clerk in a New York bookstore
(where, so the tale goes, by misreading the price cipher he sold
a $150 volume for $1.50) down to the time when he was run over by
an Erie train and dictated his weekly article for the New York
_Times_ in hospital with three broken ribs, no difficulties or
perplexities daunted him.
But beneath this whirling activity which amused and amazed his
friends there lay a deeper and quieter vein which was rich in its
own passion. 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 preciousness of common things. He loved the precarious
bustle on Grub Street; he was of that adventurous, buoyant stuff
that rejects hum-drum security and a pelfed and padded life. He
always insisted that America is the very shrine and fountain of
poetry, and this country (which is indeed pathetically eager to
take poets to its bosom) stirred his vivid imagination. The
romance of the commuter's train and the suburban street, of the
delicatessen shop and the circus and the snowman in the
yard--these were the familiar themes where he was rich and
felicitous. Many a commuter will remember his beautiful poem "The
12:45," bespeaking the thrill we have all felt in the shabby
midnight train that takes us home, yearning and weary, to the
well-beloved hearth:
What love commands, the train fulfills
And beautiful upon the hills
Are these our feet of burnished steel.
Subtly and certainly, I feel
That Glen Rock welcomes us to her.
And silent Ridgewood seems to stir
And smile, because she knows the train
Has brought her children back again.
We carry people home--and so
God speeds us, wheresoe'er we go.
The midnight train is slow and old,
But of it let this thing be told,
To its high honour be it said,
It carries weary folk to bed.
To a man such as this, whose whole fervent and busy adventure was lit
within by the lamplight and firelight of domestic passion, the war, with
its broken homes and defiled sanctities, came as a personal affront.
Both to his craving for the glamour of such a colossal drama, and to his
sense of what was most worshipful in human life, the call was
irresistible. Counsels of prudence and comfort were as nothing; the
heart-shaking poetry of this nation's entry into an utterly unselfish
war burned away all barriers. His life had been a fury of writing, but
those who thought he had entered the war merely to make journalism about
it were mistaken. Only a few weeks before his death he wrote:
To tell the truth, I am not interested in writing nowadays,
except in so far as writing is the expression of something
beautiful. And I see daily and nightly the expression of beauty
in action instead of words, and I find it more satisfactory. I am
a sergeant in the regimental intelligence section--the most
fascinating work possible--more thrills in it than in any other
branch, except, possibly, aviation. Wonderful life! But I don't
know what I'll be able to do in civilian life--unless I become a
fireman!
As journalist and lecturer Kilmer was copious and enthusiastic rather
than deep. He found--a good deal to his own secret mirth--women's clubs
and poetry societies sitting earnestly at his feet, expectant to hear
ultimate truth on deep matters. His humour prompted him to give them
the ultimate truth they craved. If his critical judgments were not
always heavily documented or long pondered, they were entertaining and
pleasantly put. The earnest world of literary societies and blue-hosed
salons lay about his feet; he flashed in it merrily, chuckling inwardly
as he found hundreds of worthy people hanging breathless on his words. A
kind of Kilmer cult grew apace; he had his followers and his devotees. I
mention these things because he would have been the first to chuckle
over them. I do not think he would want to be remembered as having taken
all that sort of thing too seriously. It was all a delicious game--part
of the grand joke of living. Sometimes, among his friends, he would
begin to pontificate in his platform manner. Then he would recall
himself, and his characteristic grin would flood his face.
As a journalist, I say, he was copious; but as a poet his song was
always prompted by a genuine gush of emotion. "A poet is only a
glorified reporter," he used to say; he took as his favourite assignment
the happier precincts of the human heart. As he said of Belloc, a true
poet will never write to order--not even to his own order. He sang
because he heard life singing all about him. His three little books of
poems have always been dear to lovers of honest simplicity. And now
their words will be lit henceforward by an inner and tender
brightness--the memory of a gallant boy who flung himself finely
against the walls of life. Where they breached he broke through and
waved his sword laughing. Where they hurled him back he turned away,
laughing still.