TREES AND OTHER POEMS    

      by Joyce Kilmer    

 
      [Alfred Joyce Kilmer, American
 (New Jersey & New York) Poet      — 1886-1918.]    

 
      Edition of 1914.    
      [A number of these poems originally appeared in various periodicals.]    

 

 
  




      TREES AND OTHER POEMS    
     "Mine is no horse with wings, to gain      The region of the Spheral chime;     He does but drag a rumbling wain,      Cheered by the coupled bells of rhyme."                              Coventry Patmore
 




      To My Mother    
     Gentlest of critics, does your memory hold      (I know it does) a record of the days      When I, a schoolboy, earned your generous praise     For halting verse and stories crudely told?     Over these childish scrawls the years have rolled,      They might not know the world's unfriendly gaze;      But still your smile shines down familiar ways,     Touches my words and turns their dross to gold.     More dear to-day than in that vanished time      Comes your nigh praise to make me proud and strong.     In my poor notes you hear Love's splendid chime,      So unto you does this, my work belong.     Take, then, a little gift of fragile rhyme:      Your heart will change it to authentic song.