Joyce Kilmer Remembered: Trees, Spring, and the Strength of Old Oaks

July 30, 2020

Today marks the anniversary of the death of Alfred Joyce Kilmer, the beloved journalist, poet, and soldier who was killed in action on July 30, 1918, during the Second Battle of the Marne in World War I.

Born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, Kilmer combined a soldier’s courage with a poet’s reverence for beauty and faith. Each April, his childhood home at 17 Joyce Kilmer Avenue opens its doors for visitors—a small tribute to the man who gave the world one of its most enduring poems about nature’s quiet majesty.

Kilmer’s most famous work, “Trees,” captures his extraordinary ability to find holiness in the natural world.

Its simplicity is part of its power: an unadorned hymn to creation, written with humility and awe.

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
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.
― Joyce Kilmer, American poet, Trees

Shortly before his death, Kilmer wrote in a letter that he had “never felt more at peace” than during his time at the front. His faith was deep, and in his poetry, that devotion transforms even the simplest images—like a tree or a butterfly—into meditations on divinity. “Trees,” published in 1913, remains one of the most quoted poems in English, reminding readers that wonder still lives in the commonplace when viewed through the lens of gratitude.

Kilmer’s gift was to fuse music and meaning, finding purity not in grandeur but in stillness. In the brief poem “Spring,” he distills rebirth into four lines of delicate grace:

The air is like a butterfly
With frail blue wings.
The happy earth looks at the sky
And sings.
— Joyce Kilmer, Spring

Here, springtime becomes a joyous conversation between heaven and earth—light, fleeting, and alive. It is a miniature reflection of his larger belief that creation itself was a form of praise.

In another poem, “Old Poets,” Kilmer turns from nature to art, addressing the strong and steadfast lineage of those who came before him. Still, his reverence for endurance and rootedness feels much like his love of trees:

If I should live in a forest
And sleep underneath a tree,
No grove of impudent saplings
Would make a home for me.
I'd go where the old oaks gather,
Serene and good and strong,
And they would not sigh and tremble
And vex me with a song.
— Joyce Kilmer, Old Poets

In these lines, Kilmer shows his kinship with what is grounded and enduring—the “old oaks,” ancient and unshaken. It is as though his poetry itself sought the same rooted strength, honest and unpretentious.

Though his life was cut short at only 31, Joyce Kilmer left behind a legacy that continues to comfort and inspire.

His poems remind us that devotion, whether shown to faith, art, or the natural world, is itself an act of creation.

In honoring trees, the elements, and the enduring human spirit, Kilmer left us with a vision of beauty as prayer—simple, faithful, and eternal.