06 December 2007

Happy Birthday Joyce Kilmer

Today is Joyce Kilmer's birthday. The Rutgers alum and New Brunswick native is probably most famous for his poem, Trees. The poem, written in 1913, is said to have been written under an oak tree (now fondly remembered as the Kilmer Oak) on what is now the Cook Campus. The tree is gone now (I gather it was over by the Labor School building) but some folks on campus still claim to have plaques made from the Kilmer Oak.

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

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