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Joyce Kilmer

Chapter 101: METAMORPHOSIS
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About This Book

A biographical memoir accompanies a wide selection of poems, essays, and letters that together trace the author’s life, friendships, and artistic growth. The poems alternate between nature and devotional themes, domestic observations, and wartime and memorial pieces composed both abroad and at home. Essays and correspondence reveal literary preferences, personal affections, and religious sensibilities, while photographs and facsimiles supplement the personal record. The collection balances lyrical short poems with occasional longer pieces and critical or biographical sketches, offering a compact portrait of a poet engaged with faith, ordinary life, and the moral and emotional stakes of his historical moment.

He was an evil thing to see—
Of joy his mouth was desolate;
His body was a stunted tree,
His eyes were pools of lust and hate.
Now silverly the linnet sings
On leaves that from his temples start,
And gay the yellow crocus springs
From the rich clod that was his heart.