With frail blue wings.
The happy earth looks at the sky
And sings.
Mount Houvenkopf
Serene he stands, with mist serenely crowned,
And draws a cloak of trees about his breast.
The
thunder roars but cannot break his rest
And from his
rugged face the tempests bound.
He does not heed the angry lightning's wound,
The raging
blizzard is his
harmless guest,
And human life is but a passing jest
To him who sees Time spin the years around.
But
fragile souls, in skyey reaches find
High vantage-points and view him from afar.
How low he seems to the ascended mind,
How brief he seems where all things endless are;
This little
playmate of the
mighty wind
This young
companion of an ancient star.
The House with Nobody in It
Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track
I go by a poor old
farmhouse with its shingles broken and black.
I suppose I've 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.
I never have seen a
haunted house, but I hear there are such things;
That they hold the talk of spirits, their mirth and sorrowings.
I know this house isn't
haunted, and I wish it were, I do;
For it wouldn't be so
lonely if it had a ghost or two.
This house on the road to Suffern needs a dozen panes of glass,
And somebody ought to weed the walk and take a
scythe to the grass.
It needs new paint and shingles, and the vines should be trimmed and tied;
But what it needs the most of all is some people living inside.
If I had a lot of money and all my debts were paid
I'd put a gang of men to work with brush and saw and spade.
I'd buy that place and fix it up the way it used to be
And I'd find some people who wanted a home and give it to them free.
Now, a new house
standing empty, with staring window and door,
Looks idle, perhaps, and foolish, like a hat on its block in the store.
But there's nothing
mournful about it; it cannot be sad and lone
For the lack of something within it that it has never known.
But a house that has done what a house should do,
a house that has sheltered life,
That has put its
lovingwooden arms around a man and his wife,
A house that has echoed a baby's laugh and held up his stumbling feet,
Is the saddest sight, when it's left alone, that ever your eyes could meet.
So
whenever I go to Suffern along the Erie track
I never go by the empty house without stopping and looking back,
Yet it hurts me to look at the crumbling roof and the shutters fallen apart,
For I can't help thinking the poor old house is a house with a broken heart.
Dave Lilly
There's a brook on the side of Greylock that used to be full of trout,
But there's nothing there now but minnows; they say it is all fished out.
I fished there many a Summer day some twenty years ago,
And I never quit without getting a mess of a dozen or so.
There was a man, Dave Lilly, who lived on the North Adams road,
And he spent all his time
fishing, while his neighbors reaped and sowed.
He was the luckiest
fisherman in the Berkshire hills, I think.
And when he didn't go
fishing he'd sit in the
tavern and drink.
Well, Dave is dead and buried and nobody cares very much;
They have no use in Greylock for drunkards and loafers and such.
But I always liked Dave Lilly, he was pleasant as you could wish;
He was shiftless and good-for-nothing, but he certainly could fish.
The other night I was walking up the hill from Williamstown
And I came to the brook I mentioned,
and I stopped on the
bridge and sat down.
I looked at the blackened water with its little flecks of white
And I heard it
ripple and
whisper in the still of the Summer night.
And after I'd been there a minute it seemed to me I could feel
The presence of someone near me, and I heard the hum of a reel.
And the water was churned and broken, and something was brought to land
By a twist and flirt of a
shadowy rod in a deft and
shadowy hand.
I scrambled down to the brookside and hunted all about;
There wasn't a sign of a
fisherman; there wasn't a sign of a trout.
But I heard somebody
chuckle behind the hollow oak
And I got a whiff of
tobacco like Lilly used to smoke.
It's fifteen years, they tell me, since anyone fished that brook;
And there's nothing in it but minnows that
nibble the bait off your hook.
But before the sun has risen and after the moon has set
I know that it's full of
ghostly trout for Lilly's ghost to get.
I guess I'll go to the
tavern and get a bottle of rye
And leave it down by the hollow oak, where Lilly's ghost went by.
I meant to go up on the
hillside and try to find his grave
And put some flowers on it -- but this will be better for Dave.
Alarm Clocks
When Dawn strides out to wake a dewy farm
Across green fields and yellow hills of hay
The little twittering birds laugh in his way
And poise
triumphant on his shining arm.
He bears a sword of flame but not to harm
The wakened life that feels his quickening sway
And
barnyard voices shrilling "It is day!"
Take by his grace a new and alien charm.
But in the city, like a wounded thing
That limps to cover from the angry chase,
He steals down streets where
sickly arc-lights sing,
And wanly mock his young and
shameful face;
And tiny gongs with cruel fervor ring
In many a high and
drearysleeping place.
Waverley
1814-1914
When, on a novel's newly printed page
We find a maudlin eulogy of sin,
And read of ways that harlots
wander in,
And of sick souls that
writhe in
helpless rage;
Or when Romance, bespectacled and sage,
Taps on her desk and bids the class begin
To con the problems that have always been
Perplexed mankind's
unhappy heritage;
Then in what robes of honor habited
The laureled
wizard of the North appears!
Who raised Prince Charlie's cohorts from the dead,
Made Rose's mirth and Flora's noble tears,
And formed that shining
legion at whose head
Rides Waverley,
triumphant o'er the years!
[End of Trees and Other Poems.]
The following biographical information is taken from the 1917 edition
of Jessie B. Rittenhouse's anthology of Modern Verse.
Kilmer, Joyce. Born at New Brunswick, New Jersey, December 6, 1886,
and graduated at Columbia University in 1908. After a short period
of teaching he became associated with Funk and Wagnalls Company,
where he remained from 1909 to 1912, when he assumed the position
of
literary editor of "The Churchman". In 1913 Mr. Kilmer became
a member of the staff of the "New York Times", a position which
he still occupies. His volumes of
poetry are: "A Summer of Love", 1911,
and "Trees, and Other Poems", 1914.
Kilmer died in France in 1918, and also published another volume,
"Main Street and Other Poems", 1917, as well as individual poems,
essays, etc.
End