Christmas 1917: What our weary hearts desire

Aline Kilmer with Kenton, c. 1909
(Joyce Kilmer House & New Brunswick Historical Society)

Joyce Kilmer was a rising American poet, famous for his 1913 poem “Trees” when he decided to leave his writing career, volunteering to fight in the First World War. Thirty-years-old with four small children and a fifth on the way, Kilmer enlisted in April 1917, despite being exempt from service due to his status as a family man. According to biographer John Covell, when Kilmer was asked how his wife Aline felt about his decision to join the fight, he answered, “She’s game.”*

Aline Kilmer, alone and expecting their fifth child, was left to care for their four young children, one of whom was dying. Their daughter Rose Kilmer, born November 15, 1912, had “suffered an attack of infantile paralysis” as a very young child, and despite the care of specialists, the little girl died at home, on September 9, 1917, just shy of her fifth birthday. According to a published obituary, the tragedy occurred “as her father was preparing to go South with his regiment.”**

Less than three weeks later, on September 29, 1917, Aline gave birth to their third son, Christopher. Her husband set sail for France with his regiment on October 31, 1917. 

As Aline Kilmer prepared for Christmas that year, she wrote a poem that describes quiet moments of melancholy and memory, juxtaposed with a season of bustling good cheer. 

Rose Kilmer's grave,
Elmwood Cemetery, New Brunswick NJ

Christmas

“And shall you have a Tree,” they say,
“Now one is dead and one away?”

Oh, I shall have a Christmas Tree!
Brighter than ever it shall be;
Dressed out with coloured lights to make
The room all glorious for your sake.
And under the Tree a Child shall sleep
Near Shepherds watching their wooden sheep.
Threads of silver and nets of gold,
Scarlet bubbles the Tree shall hold,
And little glass bells that tinkle clear.
I shall trim it alone but feel you near.
And when Christmas Day is almost done,
When they all grow sleepy one by one,
When Kenton’s books have all been read,
When Deborah’s climbing the stairs to bed,

I shall sit alone by the fire and see
Ghosts of you both come close to me.
For the dead and the absent always stay
With the one they love on Christmas Day.
—Aline Kilmer

The poem continues to resonate with those who suffer the loneliness of the season, whether because of the absence or death of loved ones. “Christmas” was first published in the Catholic periodical Messenger of the Sacred Heart in January of 1918 and was included in Aline Kilmer’s first book of poetry, Candles That Burn (1919). That volume is dedicated “To Joyce” — her husband was killed by a sniper at the Second Battle of the Marne on July 30, 1918. 

Aline Kilmer lived until 1941. On her gravestone in Stillwater, New Jersey, are inscribed lines from her poem “Sanctuary”: 

Kilmer's original grave is on the right

There all bright passing beauty is held forever
Free from the sense of tears, to be loved without regret
There we shall find at their source music and love and laughter,
Colour and subtle fragrance and soft incredible textures:
Be sure we shall find what our weary hearts desire.

Joyce Kilmer is buried in France at the Oise-Aisne American Cemetery.  

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* Cited in Peter Molin’s “Aline Kilmer: When the War Poet’s Wife is a Poet Too,” in Beyond Their Limits of Longing, Milspeak, 2022, p. 111.

** “Dr. F.B. Kilmer Loses His Granddaughter” on the Find A Grave website (article most likely from a New Brunswick, NJ newspaper).