I am trying to find the poem that has the line or close proximity:
  THINGS HAVE A TERRIBLE PERMANENCE;WHILE PEOPLE DIE
Whitman and the Rossetti's have been suggested but I haven't found it.

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Request for Question Clarification by pinkfreud-ga on 21 Sep 2002 03:10 PDT

Lablover,

I have found two online citations which identify the poet.

Will the poet's name suffice as an answer, or do you require the poem? 

~pinkfreud

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Clarification of Question by lablover-ga on 21 Sep 2002 19:28 PDT

in response to pinkfreud:
I'd appreciate the entire poem if you can cite it.
Thanks

Dear Lablover,

The lines you have quoted (correctly, except for two words) are from
"Things" by Aline Kilmer.  The original lines read:
"And things have a terrible permanence
 When people die."  

Aline Kilmer (1888-1941) was the wife of a more famous poet, Joyce
Kilmer.  "Things" is contained in a collection of Mrs. Kilmer's poems
called "Vigils."

"Vigils" is out of print, and is likely still protected under
copyright law.  It is readily available through on-line sellers of
used books at prices that vary with the condition of the book.  It may
also be available at your public or local college library.  A sample
of copies that are available from various booksellers can be found by
filling in the search form at the following link:
http://abebooks.com/

Nailing this answer down was difficult because there are very few
on-line references to the quotation, and those that I found attribute
the lines variously to Aline Kilmer, Joyce Kilmer or T.S. Eliot:

Pastor's Forum (citing Aline Kilmer)
http://forums.pastors.com/messageview.cfm?catid=48&threadid=3402 

World Future Society (citing Joyce Kilmer)
http://www.wfs.org/Q-klm.htm 

D.T.'s Today In All Kinds Of History (citing T.S. Eliot about
two/thirds of the way down the page)
http://www.kaput.com/daily/date/geo/01-04

I established the correct attribution when I found the quotation in a
standard reference work, which indicated that the lines in question
are by Aline Kilmer and appear in Stanza 6 of "Things":
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, by John Bartlett.  Little, Brown and
Company (November 1955) at p. 945b.

I found the collection in which "Things" was published by calling a
used book dealer whose website ( http://www.wonderbk.com ) indicated
that he had a copy of "Vigils," which is one of the few published
Aline Kilmer collections.  The dealer retrieved the book from his
warehouse and confirmed to me that the poem is included in the
"Vigils" collection:
Vigils, by Aline Kilmer. George H. Doran Company, New York (1921) at
p. 13.
   

Additional Links:

More about Joyce and Aline Kilmer from the Rising Dove Bookstore
website:
http://www.risingdove.com/literature/literarysearch.asp

Search Strategy:

"things have a terrible permanence" (Google search)
://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=%22things+have+a+terrible+permanence%22

Searches at used book websites:
http://abebooks.com/
http://www.alibris.com/

Follow-up search of printed reference material and telephone inquiry.


Hope this helps. Please ask for any clarifications that you might need
or if have any problems accessing the links provided.

markj-ga

Over and beyond my expectations!   Thank you, markj-ga.

My citations ( http://www.kaput.com/daily/date/geo/01-04 ) suggest
T.S. Eliot with "while" changed to "when"; unfortunately, a check with
an Eliot concordance [A concordance to the complete poems and plays of
T.S. Eliot. Dawson et al. . Cornell, 1995, page 751] gives only two
citations for "permanence" neither of which is the quotation in
question.

I infer either that the source attributing Eliot was incorrect, or
that the quotation was from a publication or letter of Eliot not in a
poem or play, or that Eliot was quoting another source.

It appears to be a quote from Aline Kilmer, the wife of the poet Joyce
Kilmer, but since most of her work is still copyright, I am having
trouble finding the name of the poem or the collection it is in.

Search:
://www.google.com/search?q=%22things+have+a+terrible+permanence%22&btnG=Google+Search&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8