William Bliss Carman

Where are the ships I used to know,
That came to port on the Fundy tide
Half a century ago,
In beauty and stately pride?
In they would come past the beacon light,
With the sun on gleaming sail and spar,
Folding their wings like birds in flight
From countries strange and far.
Schooner and brig and barkentine,
I watched them slow as the sails were furled,
And wondered what cities they must have seen
On the other side of

IN a far Eastern country
It happened long of yore,
Where a lone and level sunrise
Flushes the desert floor,
That three kings sat together
And a spearman kept the door.

Gaspar, whose wealth was counted
By city and caravan;
With Melchior, the seer
Who read the starry plan;
And Balthasar, the blameless,
Who loved his fellow man.

There while they talked, a sudden
Strange rushing sound arose,
And as with startled faces
They thought upon their foes,
Three figures stood before them
In imperial repose.

One

Now the spring is in the town,
Now the wind is in the tree,
And the wintered keels go down
To the calling of the sea.

Out from mooring, dock, and slip,
Through the harbor buoys they glide,
Drawing seaward till they dip
To the swirling of the tide.

One by one and two by two,
Down the channel turns they go,
Steering for the open blue
Where the salty great airs blow;

Craft of many a build and trim,
Every stitch

I HEAR you, Brother, I hear you,
Down in the alder swamp,
Springing your woodland whistle
To herald the April pomp!

First of the moving vanguard,
In front of the spring you come,
Where flooded waters sparkle
And streams in the twilight hum.

You sound the note of the chorus
By meadow and woodland pond,
Till, one after one up-piping,
A myriad throats respond.

I see you, Brother, I see you,
With scarlet under your wing,
Flash through the ruddy maples,
Leading the pageant

I HEAR a rainbird singing
Far off. How fine and clear
His plaintive voice comes ringing
With rapture to the ear!

Over the misty wood-lots,
Across the first spring heat,
Comes the enchanted cadence,
So clear, so solemn-sweet.

How often I have hearkened;
To that high pealing strain
Across wild cedar barrens,
Under the soft gray rain!

How often I have wondered,
And longed in vain to know
The source of that enchantment,
That touch of human woe!

O brother, who first taught thee
To haunt

Mortal, mortal, have you seen
In the scented summer night,
Great Astarte, clad in green
With a veil of mystic light,
Passing on her silent way,
Pale and lovelier than day?

Mortal, mortal, have you heard,
On an odorous summer eve,
Rumors of an unknown word
Bidding sorrow not to grieve,-
Echoes of a silver voice
Bidding every heart rejoice?

Mortal, when the slim new moon
Hangs above the western hill,
When the year comes round to June
And the leafy world is still,
Then,

Time out of mind I have stood
Fronting the frost and the sun,
That the dream of the world might endure,
And the goodly will be done.
Did the hand of the builder guess,
As he laid me stone by stone,
A heart in the granite lurked,
Patient and fond as his own?
Lovers have leaned on me
Under the summer moon,
And mowers laughed in my shade
In the harvest heat at noon.
–
Children roving the fields
With early flowers in

HERE we came when love was young.
Now that love is old,
Shall we leave the floor unswept
And the hearth acold?
–
Here the hill-wind in the dusk,
Wandering to and fro,
Moves the moonflowers, like a ghost
Of the long ago.
–
Here from every doorway looks
A remembered face,
Every sill and panel wears
A familiar grace.
–
Let the windows smile again
To the morning light,
And the door stand open wide
When the moon is bright.
–
Let the breeze of twilight blow
Through the

One day as I sat and suffered,
A long discourse upon sin,
At the door of my brain I listened
And heard this speech within:

One whisper of the Holy Ghost
Outweighs for me a thousand tomes;
And I must heed that private word,
Not Plato’s, Swedenborg’s, nor Rome’s.

The voice of beauty and of power
Which came to the beloved John
In age upon his lonely isle,
That voice I will obey, or none.

Let not tradition fill my ears
With

When all the stars are sown
Across the night-blue space,
With the immense unknown,
In silence face to face.
We stand in speechless awe
While Beauty marches by,
And wonder at the Law
Which wears such majesty.
How small a thing is man
In all that world-sown vast,
That he should hope or plan
Or dream his dream could last!
–
O doubter of the light,
Confused by fear and wrong,
Lean on the heart of night
And let love make thee strong!
–
The Good that

HERE all the forces of the wood
As one converge,
To make the soul of solitude
Where all things merge.

The sun, the rain-wind, and the rain,
The visiting moon,
The hurrying cloud by peak and plain,
Each with its boon.

Here power attains perfection still
In mighty ease,
That the great earth may have her will
Of joy and peace.

And so through me, the mortal born
Of plasmic clay,
Immortal powers, kind, fierce, forlorn,
And glad, have sway.

Eternal passions, ardors fine,
And monstrous

I said to Life, “How comes it,
With all this wealth in store,
Of beauty, joy, and knowledge,
Thy cry is still for more?
–
“Count all the years of striving
To make thy burden less,-
The things designed and fashioned
To gladden thy success!
–
“The treasures sought and gathered
Thy lightest whim to please,
The loot of all the ages,
The spoil of all the seas!
–
“Is there no end of labor,
No limit to thy need?
Must man go bowed forever
In bondage

WHEN the first silent frost has trod
The ghost-yard of the goldenrod,
–
And laid the blight of his cold hand
Upon the warm autumnal land,
–
And all things wait the subtle change
That men call death, is it not strange
–
That I -without a care or need,
Who only am an idle weed-
–
Should wait unmoved, so frail, so bold,
The coming of the final cold!
– The Ghost-yard of the Goldenrod by William Bliss Carman

AH, who will build the city of our dream,
Where beauty shall abound and truth avail,
With patient love that is too wise for strife,
Blending in power as gentle as the rain
With the reviving earth on full spring days?
Who now will speed us to its gate of peace,
And reassure us on our doubtful road?

Three centuries ago a fearless man,
Yearning to set his people in the way,
Threw all his royal might into

THIS is a holy refuge
The garden of Saint Rose
A fragrant altar to that peace
The world no longer knows.

Below a solemn hillside
Within the folding shade
Of overhanging beech and pine
Its walls and walks are laid.

Cool through the heat of summer,
Still as a sacred grove,
It has the rapt unworldly air
Of mystery and love.

All day before its outlook
The mist-blue mountains loom,
And in its trees at tranquil dusk
The early stars will bloom.

Down its enchanted

My heart is a garden of dreams
Where you walk when day is done,
Fair as the royal flowers,
Calm as the lingering sun.
–
Never a drouth comes there,
Nor any frost that mars,
Only the wind of love
Under the early stars,-
–
The living breath that moves
Whispering to and fro,
Like the voice of God in the dusk
Of the garden long ago.
– The Garden of Dreams by William Bliss Carman

I know a shining meadow stream
That winds beneath an Eastern hill,
And all year long in sun or gloom
Its murmuring voice is never still.
–
The summer dies more gently there,
The April flowers are earlier,-
The first warm rain-wind from the Sound
Sets all their eager hearts astir.
–
And there when lengthening twilights fall
As softly as a wild bird’s wing,
Across the valley in the dusk
I hear the silver flute of spring.

WE traveled empty-handed
With hearts all fear above,
For we ate the bread of friendship,
We drank the wine of love.
–
Through many a wondrous autumn,
Through many a magic spring,
We hailed the scarlet banners,
We heard the blue-bird sing.
–
We looked on life and nature
With the eager eyes of youth,
And all we asked or cared for
Was beauty, joy, and truth.
–
We found no other wisdom,
We learned no other way,
Than the gladness of the morning,
The glory of

In a still room at hush of dawn,
My Love and I lay side by side
And heard the roaming forest wind
Stir in the paling autumn-tide.
I watched her earth-brown eyes grow glad
Because the round day was so fair;
While memories of reluctant night
Lurked in the blue dusk of her hair.
Outside, a yellow maple tree,
Shifting upon the silvery blue
With tiny multitudinous sound,
Rustled to let the sunlight through.

The livelong day the elvish leaves
Danced with

CHARLEMAGNE with knight and lord,
In the hill at Ingelheim,
Slumbers at the council board,
Seated waiting for the time.

With their swords across their knees
In that chamber dimly lit,
Chin on breast life effigies
Of the dreaming gods, they sit.

Long ago they went to sleep,
While great wars above them hurled,
Taking counsel how to keep
Giant evil from the world.

Golden-armored, iron-crowned,
There in silence they await
The last war,—in war renowned,
Done with doubting and debate.

What is all our

I LOVE the stony pasture
That no one else will have.
The old gray rocks so friendly seem,
So durable and brave.

In tranquil contemplation
It watches through the year,
Seeing the frosty stars arise,
The slender moons appear.

Its music is the rain-wind,
Its choristers the birds,
And there are secrets in its heart
Too wonderful for words.

It keeps the bright-eyed creatures
That play about its walls,
Though long ago its milking herds
Were banished from their stalls.

Only the children come there,
For

I am homesick for the mountains-
My heroic mother hills
And the longing that is on me
No solace ever stills.

I would climb to brooding summits
With their old untarnished dreams,
Cool my heart in forest shadows
To the lull of falling streams;

Hear the innocence of aspens
That babble in the breeze,
And the fragrant sudden showers
That patter on the trees.

I am lonely for my thrushes
In their hermitage withdrawn,
Toning the quiet transports
Of twilight and of dawn.

I need

When earth was finished and fashioned well,
There was never a musical note to tell
How glad God was, save the voice of the rain
And the sea and the wind on the lonely plain
And the rivers among the hills.

And so God made the marvellous birds
For a choir of joy transcending words,
That the world might hear and comprehend
How rhythm and harmony can mend
The spirits’ hurts and ills.

He filled their tiny bodies with

LO, now, the journeying sun,
Another day’s march done,
Kindles his campfire at the edge of night!
And in the twilight pale
Above his crimson trail,
The stars move out their cordons still and bright.
–
Now in the darkening hush
A solitary thrush
Sings on in silvery rapture to the deep;
While brooding on her best,
The wandering soul has rest,
And earth receives her sacred gift of sleep.
– The Campfire of the Sun by William Bliss Carman