As an early riser, I heard this poem on Sunday, October 11 ,2020  in the broadcast; “Something Understood  - Inside a Tree “. This had previously been  broadcast on Sunday 25^th November 2012. It was presented by Mark Tully who explored the notion of why trees are important to us. Tully used the musical setting sung by Paul Robeson in the programme.

Having listened to it  I decided to find  out a bit more about the poem, simply called “Trees”.

Trees is what is known as a lyric poem and was written by the American poet Alfred  Joyce Kilmer.

It comprises twelve lines of rhyming couplets of iambic tetrameter verse, and describes  what  Kilmer perceives as the inability of art, created by humankind, to replicate the beauty achieved by nature.

The tone of the poem is light-hearted, as the final couplet makes clear; poems are foolish things next to nature, but nature – embodied in the poem by the tree – is superior because it is the work of God.

It celebrates the common beauty of the natural world.

Joyce Kilmer was born in New Brunswick  New Jersey USA in 1886 and was killed in action in 1918 age 32, so  his poetic output was not large.

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.
Joyce Kilmer

 ( First published  in” Poetry: A Magazine of Verse ” Volume II, No 5, August 1913)

The Paul Robeson Version was to  a musical setting by Oscar Rasbach, and I encourage you to listen to this as an interpretation of the poem.

A musical setting by Oscar Rasbach

Submitted by Roger Verrall October 17^th 2010