_I hear in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses,
All day, on the road, the hoofs of invisible horses,
All night, from their stalls, the importunate pawing and neighing._
Let cowards and laggards fall back! But alert to the saddle
Weatherworn and abreast, go men of our galloping legion,
With a stirrup-cup each to the lily of women that loves him.
The trail is through dolor and dread, over crags and morasses;
There are shapes by the way, there are things that appal or entice us:
What odds? We are Knights of the Grail, we are vowed to the riding.
Thought’s self is a vanishing wing, and joy is a cobweb,
And friendship a flower in the dust, and glory a sunbeam:
Not here is our prize, nor, alas! after these our pursuing.
A dipping of plumes, a tear, a shake of the bridle,
A passing salute to this world and her pitiful beauty;
We hurry with never a word in the track of our fathers.
_I hear in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses,
All day, on the road, the hoofs of invisible horses,
All night, from their stalls, the importunate pawing and neighing._
We spur to a land of no name, outracing the storm-wind;
We leap to the infinite dark like sparks from the anvil.
Thou leadest, O God! All’s well with Thy troopers that follow.
_Bliss Carman_
(William) Bliss Carman was born at Fredericton, New Brunswick,
Canada, April 15, 1861, of a long line of United Empire Loyalists
who withdrew from Connecticut at the time of the Revolutionary War.
Carman was educated at the University of New Brunswick (1879–81), at
Edinburgh (1882–3) and Harvard (1886–8). He took up his residence in
the United States about 1889 and, with the exception of short
sojourns in the Maritime Provinces, has lived there ever since.
In 1893, Carman issued his first book, _Low Tide on Grand Pré: A
Book of Lyrics_. It was immediately successful, running quickly into
a second edition. From the outset, it was evident that Carman
possessed the true lyrical power: the ability to fuse thought in
emotion, to interpret the external world through a personal
intensity. Simple and direct in his choice of themes, his passion
made them universal. A vivid buoyancy, new to American literature,
made his worship of Nature frankly pagan as contrasted to the
moralizing tributes of most of his predecessors. This freshness and
irresponsible whimsy made Carman the natural collaborator for
Richard Hovey, and when their first joint _Songs from Vagabondia_
appeared in 1894 Carman’s fame was established. (See Preface.)
Although the three _Vagabondia_ collections contain Carman’s best
known poems, several of his other volumes (he has published almost
twenty of them) vibrate with the same glowing pulse. An almost
physical radiance rises from _Ballads of Lost Haven_ (1897), _From
the Book of Myths_ (1902) and _Songs of the Sea Children_ (1904).
Carman has also written several volumes of essays and, in
conjunction with Mary Perry King, has devised several poem-dances
(_Daughters of Dawn_, 1913) suggesting Vachel Lindsay’s later
poem-games. In his collection _April Airs_ (1916), although the
strength is diluted and the music somewhat thinned, the old magic
persists; the spell may be overfamiliar but it is not powerless.