Joyce Kilmer

Chapter 83: WAVERLEY 1814–1914

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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.

WAVERLEY
1814–1914

When on a novel’s newly printed page

We find a maudlin eulogy of sin,

And read of ways that harlots wander in,

And of sick souls that writhe in helpless rage;

Or when Romance, bespectacled and sage,

Taps on her desk and bids the class begin

To con the problems that have always been

Perplexed mankind’s unhappy heritage;

Then in what robes of honour habited

The laureled wizard of the North appears!

Who raised Prince Charlie’s cohorts from the dead,

Made Rose’s mirth and Flora’s noble tears,

And formed that shining legion at whose head

Rides Waverley, triumphant o’er the years!