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.

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

Biography. Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918) was born in New Brunswick, N. J. He was one of the first Americans to be deeply moved by Germany’s challenge to humanity. He gave up his journalistic career in New York, and enlisted seventeen days after the United States declared war. He was attached to the Intelligence Department of the army, one of his duties being to precede the troops before an attack and find out the positions of the enemy guns. He served during almost the whole of the battle of the Marne until August first, 1918, when he received a mortal wound. Kilmer was the first American man of letters to be killed in the war. At the time of his enlistment he was the editor of poetry for the Literary Digest.

Discussion. 1. Do you agree with the poet’s conclusion given in the first stanza? 2. What is the most beautiful poem you have read? 3. What fact relating to the tree does the second couplet tell? The third couplet? The fourth? The fifth? 4. What does the last couplet tell you?

Phrases