Joyce Kilmer

Chapter 104: THE POET’S EPITAPH

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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.

THE POET’S EPITAPH

Dreams fade with morning light;

Never a morn for thee,

Dreamer of dreams, good-night.

Over our earthly sight

Shadows of woe must be;

Dreams fade with morning light.

Soldiers awake to fight—

Thou art from strife set free,

Dreamer of dreams, good-night.

Day breaketh, cruel, white,

Lovely the forms that flee;

Dreams fade with morning light.

Thine is the sure delight,

Sleep-visions still to see,

Dreamer of dreams, good-night.

Pity us from thy height,

Dawn-haunted slaves are we;

Dreams fade with morning light,

Dreamer of dreams, good-night.