To My Mother

Name: Trees and Other Poems - To My Mother
Author: Joyce Kilmer

Gentlest of critics, does your memory hold
(I know it does) a record of the days
When I, a schoolboy, earned your generous praise
For halting verse and stories crudely told?
Over these childish scrawls the years have rolled,
They might not know the world’s unfriendly gaze;
But still your smile shines down familiar ways,
Touches my words and turns their dross to gold.

More dear to-day than in that vanished time
Comes your nigh praise to make me proud and strong.
In my poor notes you hear Love’s splendid chime,
So unto you does this, my work belong.
Take, then, a little gift of fragile rhyme:
Your heart will change it to authentic song.

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Chicago: Joyce Kilmer, "To My Mother," Trees and Other Poems in Trees and Other Poems (New York: George E. Wood, 1850), Original Sources, accessed July 1, 2025, http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=977MGR8VVL4CNJ1.

MLA: Kilmer, Joyce. "To My Mother." Trees and Other Poems, in Trees and Other Poems, New York, George E. Wood, 1850, Original Sources. 1 Jul. 2025. http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=977MGR8VVL4CNJ1.

Harvard: Kilmer, J, 'To My Mother' in Trees and Other Poems. cited in 1850, Trees and Other Poems, George E. Wood, New York. Original Sources, retrieved 1 July 2025, from http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=977MGR8VVL4CNJ1.