Joyce Kilmer

Chapter 55: STARS (For the Rev. James J. Daly, S.J.)

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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.

STARS
(For the Rev. James J. Daly, S.J.)

Bright stars, yellow stars, flashing through the air,

Are you errant strands of Lady Mary’s hair?

As she slits the cloudy veil and bends down through,

Do you fall across her cheeks and over heaven too?

Gay stars, little stars, you are little eyes,

Eyes of baby angels playing in the skies.

Now and then a wingéd child turns his merry face

Down toward the spinning world—what a funny place!

Jesus Christ came from the Cross (Christ receive my soul!)

In each perfect hand and foot there was a bloody hole.

Four great iron spikes there were, red and never dry,

Michael plucked them from the Cross and set them in the sky.

Christ’s Troop, Mary’s Guard, God’s own men,

Draw your swords and strike at Hell and strike again.

Every steel-born spark that flies where God’s battles are,

Flashes past the face of God, and is a star.