The eternal slaves of beauty
Are the masters of the world.
A slave--a happy, willing slave--to beauty is the poet himself, and the
world can never repay him for the message of beauty which he has
brought it.
Kindred to _From the Book of Myths_, but much more important, is
_Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics_, one of the most successful of the
numerous attempts which have been made to recapture the poems by that
high priestess of song which remain to us only in fragments. Mr.
Carman, as Charles G. D. Roberts points out in an introduction to the
volume, has made no attempt here at translation or paraphrasing; his
venture has been "the most perilous and most alluring in the whole
field of poetry"--that of imaginative and, at the same time,
interpretive construction. Brief quotation again would fail to convey
an adequate idea of the exquisiteness of the work, and all I can do,
therefore, is to urge all lovers of real poetry to possess themselves
of _Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics_, for it is literally a storehouse of
lyric beauty.
I must not fail here to speak of _From the Book of Valentines_, which
contains some lovely things, notably "At the Great Release." This is
not only one of the finest of all Mr. Carman's poems, but it is also
one of the finest poems of our time. It is a love poem, and no one
possessing any real feeling for poetry can read it without experiencing
that strange thrill of the spirit which only the highest form of poetry
can communicate. "Morning and Evening," "In an Iris Meadow," and "A
letter from Lesbos" must be also mentioned. In the last named poem,
Sappho is represented as writing to Gorgo, and expresses herself in
these moving words:
If the high gods in that triumphant time
Have calendared no day for thee to come
Light-hearted to this doorway as of old,
Unmoved I shall behold their pomps go by--
The painted seasons in their pageantry,
The silvery progressions of the moon,
And all their infinite ardors unsubdued,
Pass with the wind replenishing the earth
Incredulous forever I must live
And, once thy lover, without joy behold,
The gradual uncounted years go by,
Sharing the bitterness of all things made.
Mention must be now made of _Songs of the Sea Children_, which can be
described only as a collection of the sweetest and tenderest love
lyrics written in our time--
the lyric songs
The earthborn children sing,
When wild-wood laughter throngs
The shy bird-throats of spring;
When there's not a joy of the heart
But flies like a flag unfurled,
And the swelling buds bring back
The April of the world.
So perfect and complete are these lyrics that it would be almost
sacrilege to quote any of them unless entire. Listen however, to these
verses:
The day is lost without thee,
The night has not a star.
Thy going is an empty room
Whose door is left ajar.
Depart: it is the footfall
Of twilight on the hills.
Return: and every rood of ground
Breaks into daffodils.
There are those who will have it that Bliss Carman has been away from
Canada so long that he has ceased to be, in a real sense, a Canadian.
Such assume rather than know, for a very little study of his work would
show them that it is shot through and through with the poet's feeling
for the land of his birth. Memories of his childhood and youthful
years down by the sea are still fresh in Mr. Carman's mind, and inspire
him again and again in his writing. "A Remembrance," at the beginning
of the present collection, may be pointed to as a striking instance of
this, but proof positive is the volume, _Songs from a Northern Garden_,
for it could have been written only by a Canadian, born and bred, one
whose heart and soul thrill to the thought of Canada. I would single
out from this volume for special mention as being "Canadian" in the
fullest sense "In a Grand Pre Garden," "The Keeper's Silence," "At Home
and Abroad," "Killoleet," and "Above the Gaspereau," but have no space
to quote from them.
But Mr. Carman is not only a Canadian, he is also a Briton; and
evidence of this is his _Ode on the Coronation_, written on the
occasion of the crowning of King Edward VII in 1902. This poem--the
very existence of which is hardly known among us--ought to be put in
the hands of every child and youth who speaks the English tongue, for
no other, I dare maintain--nothing by Kipling, or Newbolt, or any other
of our so-called "Imperial singers"--expresses more truly and more
movingly the deep feeling of love and reverence which the very thought
of England evokes in every son of hers, even though it may never have
been his to see her white cliffs rise or to tread her storied ground:
O England, little mother by the sleepless Northern tide,
Having bred so many nations to devotion, trust, and pride,
Very tenderly we turn
With welling hearts that yearn
Still to love you and defend you,--let the sons of men discern
Wherein your right and title, might and majesty, reside.
In concluding this, I greatly fear, lamentably inadequate study, I come
to the collection which follows, and which, as intimated above,
represents the work of Mr. Carman's latest period. I must say at once
that, while I yield to no one in admiration for _Low Tide_ and the
other books of that period, or for the work of the second period, as
represented by the _Songs from Vagabondia_ volumes, I have no
hesitation in declaring that I regard the poet's work of the past few
years with even higher admiration. It may not possess the force and
vigor of the work which preceded it; but anything seemingly missing in
that respect is more than made up for me by increased beauty and
clarity of expression. The mysticism--verging, or more than verging,
at times on symbolism--which marked his earlier poems, and which hung,
as it were, as a veil between them and the reader, has gone, and the
poet's thought or theme now lies clearly before us as in a mirror.
What--to take a verse from the following pages at random--could be more
pellucid, more crystal clear in expression--what indeed, could come
closer to that achieving of the impossible at which every real poet
must aim--than this from "In Gold Lacquer" (page 12)?
Gold are the great trees overhead,
And gold the leaf-strewn grass,
As though a cloth of gold were spread
To let a seraph pass.
And where the pageant should go by,
Meadow and wood and stream,
The world is all of lacquered gold,
Expectant as a dream.
The poet, happily, has fully recovered from the serious illness which
laid him low some two years ago, and which for a time caused his
friends and admirers the gravest concern, and so we may look forward
hopefully to seeing further volumes of verse come from the press to
make certain his name and fame. But if, for any reason, this should
not be--which the gods forfend!--_Later Poems_, I dare affirm, must and
will be regarded as the fine flower and crowning achievement of the
genius and art of Bliss Carman.