The Poems of Joyce Kilmer

Index by First Line

A few long-hoarded pennies in his hand

A gleam of light across the night

All day I serve among the volumes telling

An iron hand has stilled the throats

April with her violets

At the foot of the Cross on Calvary

Because the road was steep and long

Bright stars, yellow stars, flashing through the air

Dreams fade with morning light

Fair Death, kind Death, it was a gracious deed

For blows on the fort of evil

From what old ballad, or from what rich frame

Her lips’ remark was: “Oh, you kid!”

He was an evil thing to see

He who walks through the meadows of Champagne

His mind has neither need nor power to know

Homer, they tell us, was blind and could not see the beautifulfaces

If I should live in a forest

If it should be my task, I being God

I like to look at the blossomy track of the moon upon the sea

I’m home from off the stormy sea

In alien earth, across a troubled sea

In a wood they call the Rouge Bouquet

I sleep beneath a bracken sheet

I take my leave, with sorrow, of Him I love so well

I think that I shall never see

It is not good for poets to grow old

I went to gather roses and twine them in a ring

The garden of God is a radiant place

“Hail Mary, full of grace,” the Angel saith

Led by a star, a golden star

Little white bird of the summer sky

Many laughing ladies, leisurely and wise

Monsignore

Never a horn sounds in Sherwood to-night

No flower hath so fair a face as this pale love of mine

No longer of Him be it said

Not on the lute, or harp of many strings

Now by what whim of wanton chance

Now is the rhymer’s honest trade

One winter night a Devil came and sat upon my bed

On nights like this the huddled sheep

My hands were stained with blood, my heart was proud and cold

My shoulders ache beneath my pack

Night is over; through the clover globes of crystal shine

The roar of the world is in my ears

Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone

Serene and beautiful and very wise

Serene he stands, with mist serenely crowned

Severe against the pleasant arc of sky

Slender your hands and soft and white

Squire Adam had two wives, they say

The air is like a butterfly

The boom and blare of the big brass band is cheering to my heart

The bugle echoes shrill and sweet

The fragile splendour of the level sea

The halls that were loud with the merry tread of young and careless feet

The Judge’s house has a splendid porch, with pillars and steps of stone

The Kings of the earth are men of might

The Lady World

The lonely farm, the crowded street

The pleasant turf is dried and marred and seared

There is a wall of flesh before the eyes

There’s a brook on the side of Greylock that used to be full of trout

There was a gentle hostler

There was a little maiden

There was a murkier tinge in London’s air

The road is wide and the stars are out and the breath of the night is sweet

The Sixty-ninth is on its way—France heard it long ago

The Way of Love

Underneath the orchard trees lies a gypsy sleeping

Upon his will he binds a radiant chain

Vain is the chiming of forgotten bells

We who beg for bread as we daily tread

What distant mountains thrill and glow

When Dawn strides out to wake a dewy farm

Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track

When I am tired of earnest men

When on a novel’s newly printed page

When you had played with life a space

When you shall die and to the sky

Where two roads cross by Chevely town

With drooping sail and pennant

Within the broken Vatican

Within the Jersey City shed

Why is that wanton gossip Fame

Why didst thou carve thy speech laboriously

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Created April 6, 2001; not revised.