William Bliss Carman

I like the old house tolerably well,
Where I must dwell
Like a familiar gnome;
And yet I never shall feel quite at home.
I love to roam.
Day after day I loiter and explore
From door to door;
So many treasures lure
The curious mind. What histories obscure
They must immure!

I hardly know which room I care for best;
This fronting west,
With the strange hills in view,
Where the great sun goes,—where I may go too,
When my lease is

NOW soon, ah, very soon, I know
The trumpets of the north will blow,
And the great winds will come to bring
The pale, wild riders of the snow.
..
Darkening the sun with level flight,
At arrowy speed, they will alight,
Unnumbered as the desert sands,
To bivouac on the edge of night.
…
Then I, within their somber ring,
Shall hear a voice that seems to sing,
Deep, deep within my tranquil heart,
The valiant prophecy of spring.
– Before

Now when the time of fruit and grain is come
When apples hang above the orchard wall,
And from the tangle by the roadside stream
A scent of wild grapes fills the racy air,
Comes Autumn with her sunburnt caravan,
Like a long gypsy train with trappings gay
And tattered colors of the Orient,
Moving slow-footed through the dreamy hills.
——-
The woods of Wilton at her coming wear
Tints of Bokhara and of Samarcand;
The maples glow with their

FIRST all the host of Raphael
In liveries of gold,
Lifted the chorus on whose rhythm
The spinning spheres are rolled,-
The Seraphs of the morning calm
Whose hearts are never cold.

He shall be born a spirit,
Part of the soul that yearns,
The core of vital gladness
That suffers and discerns,
The stir that breaks the budding sheath
When the green spring returns,-

The gist of power and patience
Hid in the plasmic clay,
The calm behind the senses,
The passionate essay
To

Now the fire is lighted
On the chimney stone,
Day goes down the valley,
I am left alone.
.
Now the misty purple
Floods the darkened vale,
And the stars come out
On the twilight trail.
..
The mountain river murmurs
In his rocky bed,
And the stealthy shadows
Fill the house with dread.
…
Then I hear your laughter
At the open door, —
Brightly burns the fire,
I need fear no more.
– At Twilight by William Bliss Carman

Now the stars have faded
In the purple chill,
Lo, the sun is kindling
On the eastern hill.
.
Tree by tree the forest
Takes the golden tinge,
As the shafts of glory
Pierce the summit’s fringe.
..
Rock by rock the ledges
Take the rosy sheen,
As the tide of splendor
Floods the dark ravine.
…
Like a shining angel
At my cabin door,
Shod with hope and silence,
Day is come once more.
….
Then, as if in sorrow
That you are not here,
All his magic beauties
Gray and

When April came with sunshine
And showers and lilac bloom,
My heart with sudden gladness
Was like a fragrant room.
Her eyes were heaven’s own azure,
As deep as God’s own truth.
Her soul was made of rapture
And mystery and youth.
She knew the sorry burden
Of all the ancient years,
Yet could not dwell with sadness
And memory and tears.
With her there was no shadow
Of failure nor despair,
But only loving joyance.
O Heart, how glad we were!

April now in morning clad
Like a gleaming oread,
With the south wind in her voice,
Comes to bid the world rejoice.

With the sunlight on her brow,
Through her veil of silver showers,
April o’er New England now
Trails her robe of woodland flowers, –

Violet and anemone;
While along the misty sea,
Pipe at lip, she seems to blow
Haunting airs of long ago.

Once more in misted April
The world is growing green.
Along the winding river
The plumey willows lean.
–
Beyond the sweeping meadows
The looming mountains rise,
Like battlements of dreamland
Against the brooding skies.
–
In every wooded valley
The buds are breaking through,
As though the heart of all things
No languor ever knew.
–
The golden-wings and bluebirds
Call to their heavenly choirs.
The pines are blued and drifted
With smoke of brushwood fires.
–
And in my sister’s garden
Where little breezes run,
The golden daffodillies
Are blowing

At evening and at morning
By an enchanted way
I walk the world in wonder,
And have no word to say.
–
It is the path we traversed
One twilight, thou and I;
Thy beauty all a rapture,
My spirit all a cry.
–
The red leaves fall upon it,
The moon and mist and rain,
But not the magic footfall
That made its meaning plain.
– A Wood-path by William Bliss Carman

OVER the rim of a lacquered bowl,
Where a cold blue water-color stands,
I see the wintry breakers roll
And heave their froth up the freezing sands.
…..
Here in immunity safe and dull,
Soul treads her circuit of trivial things.
There soul’s brother, a shining gull,
Dares the rough weather on dauntless wings.
– A Winter Piece by William Bliss Carman

There’s a picture in my room
Lightens many an hour of gloom,-

Cheers me under fortune’s frown
And the drudgery of town.

Many and many a winter day
When my soul sees all things gray,

Here is veritable June,
Heart’s content and spirit’s boon.

It is scarce a hand-breadth wide,
Not a span from side to side,

Yet it is an open door
Looking back to joy once more,

Where the level marshes lie,
A quiet journey of the eye,

And the unsubstantial

There is something in the Autumn that is native to my blood
Touch of manner, hint of mood;
And my heart is like a rhyme,
With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time.
***
The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry
Of bugles going by.
And my lonely spirit thrills
To see the frosty asters like smoke upon the hills.
***
There is something in October sets the gipsy blood astir;
We

Wind of the dead men’s feet,
Blow down the empty street
Of this old city by the sea
With news for me!
Blow me beyond the grime
And pestilence of time!
I am too sick at heart to war
With failure any more.
Thy chill is in my bones;
The moonlight on the stones
Is pale, and palpable, and cold;
I am as one grown old.

I call from room to room
Through the deserted gloom;
The echoes are all words I know,
Lost

Here in lovely New England
When summer is come, a sea-turn
Flutters a page of remembrance
In the volume of long ago.
Soft is the wind over Grand Pre,
.
Stirring the heads of the grasses,
Sweet is the breath of the orchards
White with their apple-blow.
..
There at their infinite business
Of measuring time forever,
Murmuring songs of the sea,
The great tides come and go.
…
Over the dikes and the uplands
Wander the great cloud shadows,
Strange as the passing of sorrow,
Beautiful,

WE painters sometimes strangely keep
These holidays. When life runs deep
And broad and strong, it comes to make
Its own bright-colored almanack.
Impulse and incident divine
Must find their way through tone and line;
The throb of color and the dream
Of beauty, giving art its theme
From dear life’s daily miracle,
Illume the artist’s life as well.

A bird-note, or a turning leaf,
The first white fall of snow, a brief
Wild song from the Anthology,
A smile, or a

These things I remember
Of New England June,
Like a vivid day-dream
In the azure noon,
While one haunting figure
Strays through every scene,
Like the soul of beauty
Through her lost demesne.
…
Gardens full of roses
And peonies a-blow
In the dewy morning,
Row on stately row,
Spreading their gay patterns,
Crimson, pied and cream,
Like some gorgeous fresco
Or an Eastern dream.
…
Nets of waving sunlight
Falling through the trees;
Fields of gold-white daisies
Rippling in the breeze:
Lazy lifting groundswells,
Breaking green as jade
On the lilac beaches,
Where

I know a vale where I would go one day,
When June comes back and all the world once more
Is glad with summer. Deep in shade it lies
A mighty cleft between the bosoming hills,
A cool dim gateway to the mountains’ heart.

On either side the wooded slopes come down,
Hemlock and beech and chestnut. Here and there
Through the deep forest laurel spreads and gleams,
Pink-white as Daphne in her loveliness.
Among the sunlit shadows

Once I walked the world enchanted
Through the scented woods of spring,
Hand in hand with Love, in rapture
Just to hear a bluebird sing.
–
Now the lonely winds of autumn
Moan about my gusty eaves,
As I sit beside the fire
Listening to the flying leaves.
–
As the dying embers settle
And the twilight falls apace,
Through the gloom I see a vision
Full of ardor, full of grace.
–
When the Architect of Beauty
Breathed the lyric soul in man,
Lo, the

-I-

Soul, what art thou in the tribes of the sea?

LORD, said a flying fish,
Below the foundations of storm
We feel the primal wish
Of the earth take form.

Through the dim green water-fire
We see the red sun loom,
And the quake of a new desire
Takes hold on us down in the gloom.

No more can the filmy drift
Nor draughty currents buoy
Our whim to its bent, nor lift
Our heart to the height of its joy.

When

HALLELUJA!
What sound is this across the dark
While all the earth is sleeping? Hark!
Halleluja! Halleluja! Halleluja!

Why are thy tender eyes so bright,
Mary, Mary?
On the prophetic deep of night
Joseph, Joseph,
I see the borders of the light,
And in the day that is to be
An aureoled man-child I see,
Great love’s son, Joseph.

Halleluja!
He hears not, but she hears afar,
The Minstrel Angel of the star.
Halleluja! Halleluja! Halleluja!

Why is thy gentle smile so deep,
Mary, Mary?
It is