Joyce Kilmer Quotations

When faith did come, it came, I think, by way of my little paralyzed daughter. Her lifeless hands led me; I think her tiny feet still know beautiful paths.

For nothing keeps a poet In his high singing mood Like unappeasable hunger For unattainable food.

IN MEMORIAM: FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE She whom we love, our Lady of Compassion, Can never die, for Love forbids her death. Love has bent down in his old kindly fashion, And breathed upon her his immortal breath. On wounded soldiers, in their anguish lying, Her gentle spirit shall descend like rain. Where the white flag with the red cross is flying, There shall she dwell, the vanquisher of pain.

It is stern work, it is perilous work, to thrust your hand in the sun And pull out a spark of immortal flame to warm the hearts of men: But Prometheus, torn by the claws and beaks whose task is never done, would be tortured another eternity to go stealing fire again.

What matters Death, if Freedom be not dead? No flags are fair, if Freedom's flag be furled. Who fights for Freedom, goes with joyful tread To meet the fires of Hell against him hurled.

I suppose I 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.

There is no peace to be taken With poets who are young, For they worry about the wars to be fought and the songs that must be sung.

I think that I shall never scan A tree as lovely as a man. . . . . A tree depicts divinest plan, But God himself lives in a man.

Things have a terrible permanence when people die.

There is no place in which to hide when Age comes seeking for his bride.