Trees, and Other Poems
1914
Joyce Kilmer's sole poetry collection, published three years before his death in the First World War, captures something nearly vanished from modern verse: a poet who believed absolutely in beauty and in God, and who saw no contradiction between them. The famous title poem, 'Trees,' has become a classroom staple precisely because it says what it means, mean what it says, and somehow still surprises with its final turn toward the divine. But the collection holds far more than this single gem. Here are poems of war, of love, of grief, of morning light falling across a hillside. Here is a poet who weeps at the sight of crocuses, who glorifies the ordinary, who finds the sacred in the simplest things. Kilmer's verse is unfashionable by design, rejecting irony for sincerity, complexity for clarity. Whether you come to these poems nostalgic or skeptical, they offer something rare: the chance to encounter a poet who wrote with his whole heart, in an age when that stance has become almost radical.
Editions
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“I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree. ””
— Joyce Kilmer
“I think that I shall never seeA poem lovely as a tree.A tree whose hungry mouth is pressedAgainst the earth's sweet flowing breast;A tree that looks at God all dayAnd lifts her leafy arms to pray;A tree that may in summer wearA 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
“I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree. A tree whose hungry mouth is prest Against the sweet earth’s 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
“Trees (For Mrs. Henry Mills Alden) I think that I shall never seeA poem lovely as a tree. A tree whose hungry mouth is prestAgainst 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 wearA 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””
— Joyce Kilmer
