The Apartment House

Severe against the pleasant arc of sky
    The great stone box is cruelly displayed.
    The street becomes more dreary from its shade,
And vagrant breezes touch its walls and die.
Here sullen convicts in their chains might lie,
    Or slaves toil dumbly at some dreary trade.
    How worse than folly is their labor made
Who cleft the rocks that this might rise on high!

Yet, as I look, I see a woman's face
    Gleam from a window far above the street.
This is a house of homes, a sacred place,
    By human passion made divinely sweet.
How all the building thrills with sudden grace
    Beneath the magic of Love's golden feet!

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

Thanksgiving

Alfred Joyce Kilmer, Simple Poetry

The Fourth Shepherd

Alfred Joyce Kilmer, Simple Poetry

In Memory

Alfred Joyce Kilmer, Simple Poetry

Houses

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.

Houses

(For Aline)



When you shall die and to the sky
Serenely, delicately go,
Saint Peter, when he sees you there,
Will clash his keys and say:
"Now talk to her, Sir Christopher!
And hurry, Michelangelo!
She wants to play at building,
And you've got to help her play!"

Every architect will help erect
A palace on a lawn of cloud,
With rainbow beams and a sunset roof,
And a level star-tiled floor;
And at your will you may use the skill
Of this gay angelic crowd,
When a house is made you will throw it down,
And they'll build you twenty more.

For Christopher Wren and these other men
Who used to build on earth
Will love to go to work again
If they may work for you.
"This porch," you'll say, "should go this way!"
A...

Alfred Joyce Kilmer

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.

Alfred Joyce Kilmer

Madness

(For Sara Teasdale)



The lonely farm, the crowded street,
    The palace and the slum,
Give welcome to my silent feet
    As, bearing gifts, I come.

Last night a beggar crouched alone,
    A ragged helpless thing;
I set him on a moonbeam throne --
    Today he is a king.

Last night a king in orb and crown
    Held court with splendid cheer;
Today he tears his purple gown
    And moans and shrieks in fear.

Not iron bars, nor flashing spears,
    Not land, nor sky, nor sea,
Nor love's artillery of tears
    Can keep mine own from me.

Serene, unchanging, ever fair,
    I smile with secret mirth
And in a net of mine own hair
    I swing the captive earth.

Alfred Joyce Kilmer

On The Beach At Fontana

Wind whines and whines the shingle,
The crazy pierstakes groan;
A senile sea numbers each single
Slimesilvered stone.

From whining wind and colder
Grey sea I wrap him warm
And touch his trembling fineboned shoulder
And boyish arm.

Around us fear, descending
Darkness of fear above
And in my heart how deep unending
Ache of love!

James Joyce

Architectural Masks

I

There is a house with ivied walls,
And mullioned windows worn and old,
And the long dwellers in those halls
Have souls that know but sordid calls,
And daily dote on gold.

II

In blazing brick and plated show
Not far away a "villa" gleams,
And here a family few may know,
With book and pencil, viol and bow,
Lead inner lives of dreams.

III

The philosophic passers say,
"See that old mansion mossed and fair,
Poetic souls therein are they:
And O that gaudy box! Away,
You vulgar people there."

Thomas Hardy

At A House In Hampstead Sometime The Dwelling Of John Keats

O poet, come you haunting here
Where streets have stolen up all around,
And never a nightingale pours one
Full-throated sound?

Drawn from your drowse by the Seven famed Hills,
Thought you to find all just the same
Here shining, as in hours of old,
If you but came?

What will you do in your surprise
At seeing that changes wrought in Rome
Are wrought yet more on the misty slope
One time your home?

Will you wake wind-wafts on these stairs?
Swing the doors open noisily?
Show as an umbraged ghost beside
Your ancient tree?

Or will you, softening, the while
You further and yet further look,
Learn that a laggard few would fain
Preserve your nook? . . .

Where the Piazza steps incline,
And catch late light at eventid...

Thomas Hardy