Trees

Poet: Joyce Kilmer
Source: "Trees and Other Poems"
Year Published: 1914

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Trees


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


A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet 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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This poem is the very famous piece created by Joyce Kilmer. In fact, there were even some commercials and posters using the verses from this poem to tell us how beautiful and important a tree is.


In the first stanza, the poet states that it is quite impossible to see a poem whose beauty is comparable to a tree. And from there, he started to enumerate the lovely qualities of the tree in the following verses.


You will then notice that a tree here is not just an ordinary thing. With the dominant use of the figure of speech, persoification, the tree has somewhat transformed into an animated object. A creature full of life. An example from which personification added color to this poem are the following lines:

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

Of course, a tree cannot move. But with the writer's imagination and through personification, we can now have an image of a leafy tree raising its stems as if it is really praying.

At the end of the poem, the writer then tells us that the existence of a lovely masterpiece such as the tree is something that only God can create. And even if poets and fools can write beautiful verses, no one can still be at par with God who created all things.