SOURCE: “William Vaughn Moody (1869-1910),” in The Circus and Other Essays and Fugitive Pieces, edited by Robert Cortes Holliday, George H. Doran Company, 1921, pp. 302-11.

In the following essay, which was originally published in 1916, Kilmer discusses technical strengths and weaknesses of Moody's poetry, key events in his life, and major influences on his development.

William Vaughn Moody was throughout his life regarded as the most promising of the younger American poets. And when he died in 1910 most critics mourned for the unwritten lyrics and poetic dramas of which American literature had thus been robbed; they mentioned the author as a gifted youth, whom fate had removed at the beginning of a splendid career.

To a certain extent this attitude was a tribute to the youthful spirit of William Vaughn Moody, to his vivacity, energy and cheerfulness. But it was chiefly a new illustration of the fact that nowadays...