Joyce Kilmer.

1886–1918

Trees

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 crest;
5
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 brow snow has lain;

10
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

Joyce Kilmer. 1886–1918

Trees

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 crest;
5
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 brow snow has lain;

10
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.
"Analysis"

"Trees" is a poem of twelve lines in strict iambic tetrameter. All but one of the lines has the full eight
syllables of iambic tetrameter. The eleventh, or penultimate, line begins on the stressed syllable of the
iambic foot and drops the unstressed syllable—an acephalous (or "headless") catalectic line—that
results in a truncated seven-syllable iambic tetrameter line. Making the meter of a line catalectic can
change the feeling of the poem, and is often used to achieve a certain effect as a way of changing tone
or announcing a conclusion. The poem's rhyme scheme is rhyming couplets rendered aa bb cc dd ee
aa.
Despite its deceptive simplicity in rhyme and meter, "Trees" is notable for its use
of personification and anthropomorphic imagery:

--

The popular appeal of this simple poem is likely the source of its endurance despite the continuing
negative opinion of the poem's merits from scholars and critics. According to Robert Holliday,
Kilmer's friend and editor, "Trees" speaks "with authentic song to the simplest of hearts" and that
"(t)he exquisite title poem now so universally known, made his reputation more than all the rest he
had written put together. That impeccable lyric which made for immediate widespread popularity."