Joyce Kilmer Quotes

• I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree.

  Joyce Kilmer

  Love, Inspirational, Nature

  "Trees" l. 1 (1913)

  57 Copy quote

• I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree. A tree whose hungry mouth is pressed 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.

  Joyce Kilmer

  Summer, Sweet, Nature

  "Trees" l. 11 (1913)

  19 Copy quote

• The air is like a butterfly
  With frail blue wings.
  The happy earth looks at the sky
  And sings.

  Joyce Kilmer

  Happiness, Spring, Butterfly

  Joyce Kilmer (1946). “Joyce Kilmer”

  19 Copy quote

• The only reason a road is good as every wanderer knows / Is just because of the homes, the homes, the homes to which one goes

  Joyce Kilmer

  Home, Journey, Reason

  Joyce Kilmer, “Roofs”

  17 Copy quote

• There is no place in which to hide when Age comes seeking for his bride.

  Joyce Kilmer

  Age, Brides, Old Age

  Joyce Kilmer (1911). “Summer of Love”

  11 Copy quote

• They say that life is a highway and its milestones are the years,And now and then there's a toll-gate where you buy your way with tears.It's a rough road and a steep road and it stretches broad and far,But at last it leads to a golden Town where golden Houses are.

  Joyce Kilmer

  Years, House, Tears

  Joyce Kilmer (1968). “Joyce Kilmer: Memoir and poems”

  13 Copy quote

• The fairy poet takes a sheet Of moonbeam, silver white; His ink is dew from daisies sweet, His pen a point of light.

  Joyce Kilmer

  Sweet, Angel, Light

  Joyce Kilmer (1911). “Summer of Love”

  15 Copy quote

• There is no peace to be taken
  With poets who are young,
  For they worry about the wars to be fought
  and the songs that must be sung.

  Joyce Kilmer

  Song, War, Taken

  Joyce Kilmer (1968). “Joyce Kilmer: Memoir and poems”

  8 Copy quote

• Poems are made by fools like me,
  But only God can make a tree

  Joyce Kilmer

  Nature, Tree, Fool

  "Trees" l. 11 (1913)

  18 Copy quote

• At present, I am a poet trying to be a soldier. To tell the truth, I am not interested in writing nowadays, except in so far as writing is the expression of something beautiful ... The only sort of book I care to write about the war is the sort people will read after the war is over - a century after it is over.

  Joyce Kilmer

  Beautiful, War, Book

  Joyce Kilmer (1968). “Joyce Kilmer: Memoir and poems”

  8 Copy quote

• 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.

  Joyce Kilmer

  Sweet, Thinking, Tree

  Joyce Kilmer (1968). “Joyce Kilmer: Memoir and poems”

  34 Copy quote

• I think that I shall never scan A tree as lovely as a man. . . . . A tree depicts divinest plan, But God himself lives in a man.

  Joyce Kilmer

  Men, Thinking, Tree

  7 Copy quote

• I suppose I passed it a hundred times, But I always stop for a minute. And look at the house, the tragic house, The house with nobody in it.

  Joyce Kilmer

  Success, House, Looks

  Joyce Kilmer (1918). “Joyce Kilmer”

  12 Copy quote

• Things have a terrible permanence when people die.

  Joyce Kilmer

  People, Dying, Terrible

  7 Copy quote

• What matters Death, if Freedom be not dead?
  No flags are fair, if Freedom's flag be furled.
  Who fights for Freedom, goes with joyful tread
  To meet the fires of Hell against him hurled.

  Joyce Kilmer

  Fighting, Fire, What Matters

  Joyce Kilmer (1968). “Joyce Kilmer: Memoir and poems”

  5 Copy quote

• For nothing keeps a poet
  In his high singing mood
  Like unappeasable hunger
  For unattainable food.

  Joyce Kilmer

  Singing, Unattainable, Hunger

  Joyce Kilmer (1968). “Joyce Kilmer: Memoir and poems”

  8 Copy quote

• In a wood they call the Rouge Bouquet,
  There is a new-made grave today,
  Built by never a spade nor pick,
  Yet covered with earth ten meteres thick.
  There lie many fighting men.
  Dead in their youthful prime.

  Joyce Kilmer

  Lying, Fighting, Men

  Joyce Kilmer (1918). “Joyce Kilmer”

  10 Copy quote

• 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:
  But Prometheus, torn by the claws and beaks whose task is never done, would be tortured another eternity to go stealing fire again.

  Joyce Kilmer

  Heart, Men, Fire

  Joyce Kilmer (1917). “Main Street, and Other Poems”

  7 Copy quote

• IN MEMORIAM: FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE
  She whom we love, our Lady of Compassion,
  Can never die, for Love forbids her death.
  Love has bent down in his old kindly fashion,
  And breathed upon her his immortal breath.
  On wounded soldiers, in their anguish lying,
  Her gentle spirit shall descend like rain.
  Where the white flag with the red cross is flying,
  There shall she dwell, the vanquisher of pain.

  Joyce Kilmer

  Fashion, Pain, Lying

  Joyce Kilmer (1911). “Summer of Love”

  6 Copy quote

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