Love's Lantern

(For Aline)



Because the road was steep and long
    And through a dark and lonely land,
God set upon my lips a song
    And put a lantern in my hand.

Through miles on weary miles of night
    That stretch relentless in my way
My lantern burns serene and white,
    An unexhausted cup of day.

O golden lights and lights like wine,
    How dim your boasted splendors are.
Behold this little lamp of mine;
    It is more starlike than a star!

Alfred Joyce Kilmer

Alfred Joyce Kilmer was an American poet, journalist, literary critic, lecturer, and soldier. Though a prolific poet whose works celebrated the common beauty of the natural world, he is best known for a short poem titled 'Trees' (1913), which was published in Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. Kilmer's work has been widely anthologized and remains well-loved. He died during World War I in France at the age of 31.

Alfred Joyce Kilmer

To Certain Poets

Alfred Joyce Kilmer, Simple Poetry

The Rosary

Alfred Joyce Kilmer, Simple Poetry

Alarm Clocks

Alfred Joyce Kilmer, Simple Poetry

Father Gerard Hopkins, S. J.

Alfred Joyce Kilmer, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

As Winds That Blow Against A Star

(For Aline)



Now by what whim of wanton chance
    Do radiant eyes know sombre days?
And feet that shod in light should dance
    Walk weary and laborious ways?

But rays from Heaven, white and whole,
    May penetrate the gloom of earth;
And tears but nourish, in your soul,
    The glory of celestial mirth.

The darts of toil and sorrow, sent
    Against your peaceful beauty, are
As foolish and as impotent
    As winds that blow against a star.

Alfred Joyce Kilmer

The Philosopher Aristippus[1] To A Lamp Which Had Been Given Him By Lais.

        Dulcis conscia lectuli lucerna.
        MARTIAL, lib. xiv. epig. 89.


"Oh! love the Lamp" (my Mistress said),
    "The faithful Lamp that, many a night,
"Beside thy Lais' lonely bed?
    "Has kept its little watch of light.

"Full often has it seen her weep,
    "And fix her eye upon its flame.
"Till, weary, she has sunk to sleep,
    "Repeating her beloved's name.

"Then love the Lamp--'twill often lead
    "Thy step through learning's sacred way;
"And when those studious eyes shall read,
"At midnight, by its lonely ray,
    "Of things sublime, of nature's birth,
    "Of all that's bright in heaven or earth,
Oh, think that she, by whom 'twas given,
"Adores thee more than earth or heaven!"

Yes--dearest...

Thomas Moore

A Basket Of Flowers - From Dawn To Dusk

Dawn

On skies still and starlit
White lustres take hold,
And grey flushes scarlet,
And red flashes gold.
And sun-glories cover
The rose shed above her,
Like lover and lover
They flame and unfold.

-    -    -    -    -

Still bloom in the garden
Green grass-plot, fresh lawn,
Though pasture lands harden
And drought fissures yawn.
While leaves not a few fall,
Let rose leaves for you fall,
Leaves pearl-strung with dew-fall,
And gold shot with dawn.

Does the grass-plot remember
The fall of your feet
In autumns red ember,
When drought leagues with heat,
When the last of the roses
Despairingly closes
In the lull that reposes
Ere storm winds wax fleet?

Loves melodies languish
...

Adam Lindsay Gordon

Apology

(For Eleanor Rogers Cox)



For blows on the fort of evil
That never shows a breach,
For terrible life-long races
To a goal no foot can reach,
For reckless leaps into darkness
With hands outstretched to a star,
There is jubilation in Heaven
Where the great dead poets are.

There is joy over disappointment
And delight in hopes that were vain.
Each poet is glad there was no cure
To stop his lonely pain.
For nothing keeps a poet
In his high singing mood
Like unappeasable hunger
For unattainable food.

So fools are glad of the folly
That made them weep and sing,
And Keats is thankful for Fanny Brawne
And Drummond for his king.
They know that on flinty sorrow
And failure and desire
The steel of their souls...

Alfred Joyce Kilmer

Lionel Johnson

(For the Rev. John J. Burke, C. S. P.)



There was a murkier tinge in London's air
As if the honest fog blushed black for shame.
Fools sang of sin, for other fools' acclaim,
And Milton's wreath was tossed to Baudelaire.
The flowers of evil blossomed everywhere,
But in their midst a radiant lily came
Candescent, pure, a cup of living flame,
Bloomed for a day, and left the earth more fair.

And was it Charles, thy "fair and fatal King",
Who bade thee welcome to the lovely land?
Or did Lord David cease to harp and sing
To take in his thine emulative hand?
Or did Our Lady's smile shine forth, to bring
Her lyric Knight within her choir to stand?

Alfred Joyce Kilmer

Multiplication

(For S. M. E.)



I take my leave, with sorrow, of Him I love so well;
I look my last upon His small and radiant prison-cell;
O happy lamp! to serve Him with never ceasing light!
O happy flame! to tremble forever in His sight!

I leave the holy quiet for the loudly human train,
And my heart that He has breathed upon is filled with lonely pain.
O King, O Friend, O Lover!    What sorer grief can be
In all the reddest depths of Hell than banishment from Thee?

But from my window as I speed across the sleeping land
I see the towns and villages wherein His houses stand.
Above the roofs I see a cross outlined against the night,
And I know that there my Lover dwells in His sacramental might.

Dominions kneel before Him, and Powers kiss His feet,
Y...

Alfred Joyce Kilmer