BLISS CARMAN

A FASCINATING and somewhat baffling talent is that of Mr. Bliss Carman. His weird and fantastic imagination is enlisted in the service of a far-reaching philosophy which purports to gather the whole universe into its embrace; but the precise nature of that philosophy I cannot for the life of me discover. A half-stoical, half-rollicking Bohemianism is one of its prevailing notes; yet every now and then it passes over, without the slightest modulation, into a sort of grim and cynical pessimism; while in a number of poems one is tempted to call it sheer rigmarole, a long-drawn pageant of symbols which symbolise nothing. I feel that here I am on dangerous ground. It is quite possible that there may arise -if it has not already arisen—a sect of Carmanites who, by brooding on the enigmas of Behind the Arras, may hatch out a religion from the germs of thought which are scattered through its pages in reckless profusion. Militant sects have been founded ere now on less cryptic, and certainly less thoughtful, scriptures. I myself, were I casting about for a religion, should be tempted to shut myself up for six weeks or so in a lonely tower, with no literature in my portmanteau but Behind the Arras and Low Tide on Grand Pré. One might easily find much duller and less melodious sacred books. But as I feel no pressing need for a new revelation, I am bound to say, at the risk of figuring as an incredible dullard in the eyes of a Carmanite posterity,

that I prefer the Bohemian and humorist in Mr. Carman to the metaphysician and moralist, and am more grateful to him for one whiff of downright Nova-Scotia brine, than for all his researches in the stifling caverns of symbolism.

Let me not be understood, however, to bracket together Low Tide on Grand Pré and Behind the Arras. When he wrote Low Tide on Grand Pré Mr. Carman was not consciously and deliberately a symbolist. This "Book of Lyrics," as he calls it, is genuinely lyrical in intention and in tone; but one respectful and indeed admiring reader must confess his inability, in most cases, to make out what the lyrics are about. Not that they are obscure; on the contrary, taken stanza by stanza, they seem as clear as daylight; but when you have read a lyric through, there is nothing for you to take hold of; nothing to bite on the mind. Even a pure lyric should tell its story, or at least suggest its situation; whereas Mr. Carman rhymes on and on, with grace, feeling and distinction, to leave us wondering at the end of a poem why it was ever begun. In saying this I probably do him injustice. I lack some key, whether of personal knowledge or local association, that should unlock for me the mystery of these Acadian lyrics. Let me quote one (chosen for its brevity, not for any exceptional vagueness in its matter), to exemplify my meaning:

A WIND-FLOWER.

Between the roadside and the wood,
Between the dawning and the dew,
A tiny flower before the sun,
Ephemeral in time, I grew.

And there upon the trail of spring,

Not death nor love nor any name

Known among men in all their lands
Could blur the wild desire with shame.

But down my dayspan of the year

The feet of straying winds came by ;
And all my trembling soul was thrilled
To follow one lost mountain cry.

And then my heart beat once and broke
To hear the sweeping rain forebode
Some ruin in the April world,

Between the woodside and the road.

To-night can bring no healing now;
The calm of yesternight is gone;
Surely the wind is but the wind,

And I a broken waif thereon.

This is chosen, let me add, not only for its brevity, but for its beauty. It is a delightful piece of writing; but perspicuous I cannot think it. That I do not know the particular flower in question is, of course, my own misfortune; but though I have the haziest notions as to the "Small Celandine," my lack of botanical knowledge does not hinder my enjoyment of Wordsworth's two poems. One is quite willing to take the botany for granted, to rely on the poet for information about whatever flower inspires him; but Mr. Carman tells me nothing I can grasp or carry away about the Wind-flower.

And there upon the trail of spring,

Not death nor love nor any name
Known among men in all their lands

Could blur the wild desire with shame!

What "wild desire," one asks in amaze? One dimly conjectures, indeed, that this wind-flower is a feminine windflower, and that the poem adumbrates a Village Tragedy. But I submit that the situation is inadequately suggested, that the poet expects too much of his reader. And so it is with almost all the poems in this book: for instance, Pulvis et Umbra, Wanderers, and Wayfaring. We begin a poem with pleasure, and slip easily along the smooth levels of Mr. Carman's verse; but presently we find that we have