Joyce Kilmer

Chapter 46: IN MEMORY OF RUPERT BROOKE

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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.

IN MEMORY OF RUPERT BROOKE

In alien earth, across a troubled sea,

His body lies that was so fair and young.

His mouth is stopped, with half his songs unsung;

His arm is still, that struck to make men free.

But let no cloud of lamentation be

Where, on a warrior’s grave, a lyre is hung.

We keep the echoes of his golden tongue,

We keep the vision of his chivalry.

So Israel’s joy, the loveliest of kings,

Smote now his harp, and now the hostile horde.

To-day the starry roof of Heaven rings

With psalms a soldier made to praise his Lord;

And David rests beneath Eternal wings,

Song on his lips, and in his hand a sword.