Joyce Kilmer

Chapter 39: THE VISITATION (For Louise Imogen Guiney)

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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 VISITATION
(For Louise Imogen Guiney)

There is a wall of flesh before the eyes

Of John, who yet perceives and hails his King.

It is Our Lady’s painful bliss to bring

Before mankind the Glory of the skies.

Her cousin feels her womb’s sweet burden rise

And leap with joy, and she comes forth to sing,

With trembling mouth, her words of welcoming.

She knows her hidden God, and prophesies.

Saint John, pray for us, weary souls that tarry

Where life is withered by sin’s deadly breath.

Pray for us, whom the dogs of Satan harry,

Saint John, Saint Anne, and Saint Elizabeth.

And, Mother Mary, give us Christ to carry

Within our hearts, that we may conquer death.