Explore "In Memory" by Joyce Kilmer on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I. Serene and beautiful and very wise, / Most erudite in curious Grecian lore, / You lay and read your learned books, and bore / A weight of unshed tears and silent sighs. / The song within your heart could never rise / Until love bade it spread its wings and soar. / Nor could you look on Beauty's face before / A poet's burning mouth had touched your eyes. / Love is made out of ecstasy and wonder; / Love is a poignant and accustomed pain. / It is a burst of Heaven-shaking thunder; / It is a linnet's fluting after rain. / Love's voice is through your song; above and under / And in each note to echo and remain.
II. Because Mankind is glad and brave and young, / Full of gay flames that white and scarlet glow, / All joys and passions that Mankind may know / By you were nobly felt and nobly sung. / Because Mankind's heart every day is wrung / By Fate's wild hands that twist and tear it so, / Therefore you echoed Man's undying woe, / A harp Aeolian on Life's branches hung. / So did the ghosts of toiling children hover / About the piteous portals of your mind; / Your eyes, that looked on glory, could discover / The angry scar to which the world was blind: / And it was grief that made Mankind your lover, / And it was grief that made you love Mankind.