When I have cried to thee in lonely need, Being but a child of thine bereft and wrung, Then all the rivers in the hills gave heed; And the great hill-winds in thy holy tongue--
That ancient incommunicable speech-- The April stars and autumn sunsets know-- Soothed me and calmed with solace beyond reach Of human ken, mysterious and low.
Who can read or listen to those moving lines without feeling that Mr. Carman is in very truth a poet of nature--nay, Nature's own poet? But how could he be other when, in "The Breath of the Reed" (_From the Green Book of the Bards_), he makes the appeal?
Make me thy priest, O Mother, And prophet of thy mood, With all the forest wonder Enraptured and imbued.
As becomes such a poet, and particularly a poet whose birth-month is April, Mr. Carman sings much of the early spring. Again and again he takes up his woodland pipe, and lo! Pan himself and all his train troop joyously before us. Yet the singer's notes for all his singing never become wearied or strident; his airs are ever new and fresh; his latest songs are no less spontaneous and winning than were his first, written how many years ago, while at the same time they have gained in beauty and melody. What heart will not stir to the vibrant music of his immortal "Spring Song," which was originally published in the first _Songs from Vagabondia_, and the opening verses of which follow?
Make me over, mother April, When the sap begins to stir! When thy flowery hand delivers All the mountain-prisoned rivers, And thy great heart beats and quivers To revive the days that were, Make me over, mother April, When the sap begins to stir!
Take my dust and all my dreaming, Count my heart-beats one by one, Send them where the winters perish; Then some golden noon recherish And restore them in the sun, Flower and scent and dust and dreaming, With their heart-beats every one!
That poem is sufficient in itself to prove that Bliss Carman has full right and title to be called Spring's own lyrist, though it may be remarked here that not all his spring poems are so unfeignedly joyous. Many of them indeed, have a touch, or more than a touch, of wistfulness, for the poet knows well that sorrow lurks under all joy, deep and well hidden though it may be.