Poetry Thursday - Carman

All photography courtesy of our private collection.

As you read the poem I have selected and see the photographs I have shared, click on each one to enlarge it and take a walk with me through the gardens. The sunlight drapes the tulips in a glittering light which renders the petals almost translucent. See the Royal Star Magnolia's bloom of pure white splendor. There is a tiny spider climbing one of the pink tulip buds...can you see it? The weeping cherry tree is losing its blooms so that it can dress itself in green while the pink and purple tulips dance around it. I see the beginning of a bouquet my husband has planted for me when my eyes find the yellow tulip buds not yet open. The gifts of this garden await my eyes each morning, tulips singing to me through my kitchen window and shining gloriously, speaking to me of love and nature's precious mysteries.

Beauty is always there just waiting to be found.

EARTH VOICES











I

I heard the spring wind whisper
Above the brushwood fire,
"The world is made forever
Of transport and desire.

"I am the breath of being,
The primal urge of things;
I am the whirl of star dust,
I am the lift of wings.

"I am the splendid impulse
That comes before the thought,
The joy and exaltation
Wherein the life is caught.

"Across the sleeping furrows
I call the buried seed,
And blade and bud and blossom
Awaken at my need.

"Within the dying ashes
I blow the sacred spark,
And make the hearts of lovers
To leap against the dark."











II

I heard the spring light whisper
Above the dancing stream,
"The world is made forever
In likeness of a dream.

"I am the law of planets,
I am the guide of man;
The evening and the morning
Are fashioned to my plan.

"I tint the dawn with crimson,
I tinge the sea with blue;
My track is in the desert,
My trail is in the dew.

"I paint the hills with color,
And in my magic dome
I light the star of evening
To steer the traveller home.

"Within the house of being,
I feed the lamp of truth
With tales of ancient wisdom
And prophecies of youth."












III

I heard the spring rain murmur
Above the roadside flower,
"The world is made forever
In melody and power.

"I keep the rhythmic measure
That marks the steps of time,
And all my toil is fashioned
To symmetry and rhyme.

"I plow the untilled upland,
I ripe the seeding grass,
And fill the leafy forest
With music as I pass.

"I hew the raw, rough granite
To loveliness of line,
And when my work is finished,
Behold, it is divine!

"I am the master-builder
In whom the ages trust.
I lift the lost perfection
To blossom from the dust."














IV

Then Earth to them made answer,
As with a slow refrain
Born of the blended voices
Of wind and sun and rain,
"This is the law of being
That links the threefold chain:
The life we give to beauty
Returns to us again."

~William Bliss Carman~

"Earth Voices" is reprinted from April Airs: A Book of New England Lyrics. Bliss Carman. Boston: Small, Maynard and Company, 1916.





Bliss Carman was born in New Brunswick, Canada in 1861 with a maternal ancestry traced back to Ralph Waldo Emerson. He received undergraduate, and graduate degrees in New Brunswick, Canada, leaving to attend Oxford and Edinburgh but did not complete post graduate work there. He returned to New Bruanswick where he taught French and practiced law prior to leaving for Harvard. He did not complete post graduate work at Harvard but moved instead to NYC where he worked as an editor with several periodicals. He published books of essays and volumes of poetry, did notable editorial work on poetry anthologies, and was a successful speaker. He met Mary Perry King and her husband in 1896 and did collaborative work with Mrs. King, writing books on personality development, and work on masques, and intepretive dance. He relocated near this couple in Connecticut and worked with Mrs. King in a summer school program for many years. Carman was treated during the last decade of his life for tuberculosis and died in 1929 in Connecticut. Bliss Carman, the unofficial poet laureate of Canada, was buried in New Brunshwick, Canada.