Notwithstanding, in his second volume Roberts is taking his first step on the way to the expression of the essential form and manner of his creative genius as a poet. He was born to lilt, in simple lyrical and descriptive verse, the aesthetic sensations and the emotional nuances of Canadian life and external nature. In short, Roberts was born to become, as he did become, the most engaging and artistic, though not the first, native-born Canadian idyllist. In Divers Tones he first appears as a really significant creative Canadian poet. But whenever, in his later literary career, Roberts forsakes his light or simple idyllic and impressionistic treatment of Canadian life and external nature, as he forsakes it in the monody, in his poetry of city life, and in his poetry of modern eroticism, he may be engaging or arresting or impressive, but in nowise is he creatively significant.
In the same volume, In Divers Tones, Roberts exhibits two manners. In some poems in the volume he clings to his old manner of English Classical Impressionism. In other poems in the same volume he essays his new manner of Canadian Impressionism. The first is distinguished by overweighted sensuousness, by over-burdened luxurious color of descriptive epithet and verbal music. An impressive example is Off Pelorus, the sensuous quality of which may be suggested by the following single stanza:—
Idly took we thought, for still our eyes betray us,
Lo, the white-limbed maids, with love-soft eyes aglow,
Gleaming bosoms bare, loosed hair, sweet hands to slay us,
Warm lips wild with song, and softer throat than snow!
Roberts’ strictly Canadian Impressionism is colorful and musical, but the structure of the verse is simple, as, for instance, On the Creek, an idyllic lyric, full of Canadian color, and highly alliterative, beginning:—
Dear heart, the noisy strife,
And bitter harpings cease.
Here is the lamp of life,