Skip to content

For blows on the fort of evil
That never shows a breach,
For terrible life-long races
To a goal no foot can reach,
For reckless leaps into darkness
With hands outstretched to a star,
There is jubilation in Heaven
Where the great dead poets are.

— Joyce Kilmer Main Street and Other Poems (1917)

Another quote →

More quotes by Joyce Kilmer

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

Trees and Other Poems (1914)

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

Trees and Other Poems (1914)

The bugle echoes shrill and sweet,
But not of war it sings to-day.
The road is rhythmic with the feet
⁠Of men-at-arms who come to pray.

Trees and Other Poems (1914)

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.

Main Street and Other Poems (1917)

The song within your heart could never rise
Until love bade it spread its wings and soar.

Main Street and Other Poems (1917)

All Joyce Kilmer quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Joyce Kilmer (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.