Joyce Kilmer

Chapter 89: TRANSFIGURATION

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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.

TRANSFIGURATION

If it should be my task, I being God,

From whirling atoms to evolve your mate,

With hands omnipotent I should create

A great-souled hero, with the starlight shod.

The subject worlds should tremble at his nod

And all the angel host upon him wait,

Yet he should leave his pomp and splendid state

And kneel to kiss the ground whereon you trod.

But God, who like a little child is wise,

Made me, a common thing of earthly clay;

Then bade me go and see within your eyes

The flame of love that burns more bright than day,

And as I looked I knew with wild surprise

I was transformed—your heart in my heart lay.