The first poet and author in the American army to give up his life for the cause of freedom was Joyce Kilmer. Like Alan Seeger, another American poet who fell fighting in the Foreign Legion of France, Joyce Kilmer greatly loved life. He loved the flowers and birds and trees. Probably his finest poem is one which he wrote about trees. He loved the people around him, impatient only with those who did not love and make the most of the life that God had given them. He loved children, and simple everyday things, as he shows in one of his latest poems, "The Snowman in the Yard."
"But I have something no architect
or gardener ever made,
A thing that is shaped by the busy touch
of little mittened hands;
And the Judge would give up his lovely estate,
where the level snow is laid,
For the tiny house with the trampled yard,
the yard where the snowman stands."
After his graduation from Columbia University in 1908, he became a teacher of Latin in the high school at Morristown, New Jersey, his home state. He seemed but a lad himself,—tall, with stern, dark eyes, a clear, musical voice, and a winning smile. Jovial, gracious, and gentlemanly in his manners, he made many friends both in his home state and in New York, where he soon took his wife and little son to live.
In college he had written some poetry. In New York he hoped to write more. He began his career there as editor of a journal for horsemen. But he did not remain at this work long. He became in turn a salesman in a large New York book store, an assistant editor, and then an editor. When the war broke out, he was a member of the staff of the New York Times. He had written several poems, and prose articles for popular magazines and periodicals. At the age of twenty-five he was widely known, enough of a celebrity, in fact, to have his name appear in "Who's Who in America."
He liked adventure, as does any American youth. He was always glad to visit a friend who had met with an accident or any other unusual circumstance. He found himself in what he considered an interesting and entertaining predicament when in New York he was struck by a train and had to be carried to a hospital. "Such things did not happen every day," he said, and he took the experience in good humor.
Soon after landing in France, he wrote a description of a long march made by his regiment. At the end of the march, the men were too weary even to spread out their blankets, but dropped down to rest on the floor of the loft in the French peasant home where they were billeted for the night. But even that experience was new and interesting. Later, when the men were somewhat rested, they missed one of their mates, and on going down stairs found him with his frozen feet in a tub of cold water furnished him by the peasant woman. The little girl of the home was on his knees, and the two boys were standing beside him—as Joyce Kilmer described them—"envying him" his frozen feet.
He also found interesting work at the front, in connection with the trench newspaper, The Stars and Stripes.
At the dawn of a dark and misty Sunday morning in July, his regiment was ordered to charge across the river Ourcq and take the hill beyond, from where the enemy's machine guns were pouring down a withering rain of bullets. His own battalion, he learned, was not to be in the lead. So he promptly asked and obtained permission to join the leading battalion.
Across the river they charged and for five days fought for the heights. But Joyce Kilmer was not there to witness the victory.
In the fiercest battles, the bravest officers often go before and lead their men into the fight, thus encouraging them more than if following them or charging at their side. The fight beyond the Ourcq was a fierce one, and the chief officer dashed on ahead of his men. Touching elbows with him was Sergeant Kilmer. When the battalion adjutant was killed, he served, although without a commission, as a sort of aid to the battalion commander.