Alfred Joyce Kilmer was born on 6 December 1886 in New Brunswick, New Jersey, into a household in which intellectual seriousness and artistic feeling were not opposites but companion forces. His father, Frederick Barnett Kilmer, was a physician, analytical chemist, and later a leading scientific figure at Johnson & Johnson; his work helped establish standards for pharmaceutical and consumer-health products in an era…
“I believed in the Catholic position, the Catholic view of ethics and aesthetics, for a long time... I wanted something not intellectual, some conviction not mental – in fact I wanted Faith.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Death & Mortality, Devotional Poets, War Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Wonder, Peace
Francis William Bourdillon, born on 22 March 1852 and dead on 13 January 1921, occupies an unusual position in English literary history. He is remembered by many readers, often without recognition of his name, for a single exquisite lyric: “The Night Has a Thousand Eyes.” Its opening contrast—“The night has a thousand eyes, / And the day but one”—has passed into common literary memory, quoted in anthologies, schoolro…
Neighbourhood:
Love Poets, Nature Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Longing, Tenderness
