O all you hearts about the world
In whom the truant gypsy blood,
Under the frost of this pale time,
Sleeps like the daring sap and flood
That dream of April and reprieve!
You whom the haunted vision drives,
Incredulous of home and ease,
Perfection’s lovers all your lives!
What it was given to Carman to discern in the universe was the eternal meaning of youth and to hear the ever-young voice of earth singing in the heart of man and in the earth, in everything, and to be himself the lyric voice of the world. Stevenson was also such a lyric voice of earth. Carman, then, does highly spiritualize his subject when he first presents Stevenson in the manner of the outward aspect by which he was commonly conceived, a restless loved adventurer, who when he died was laid down, as Carman puts it in novel and arresting paradox:—
Beyond the turmoil of renown,