Lead forth and far!
Thy toiling troopers of the night
Press on the unavailing fight;
The sombre field is not yet lost,
With thee for star.
Carman is also singularly adept in the use of what may be called musical onomatopœia. In this quality his ear is specially sensitive to pianissimi in Nature, the soughing of the winds, the sighings and whisperings of the zephyrs, the fifings and murmurings of the insects (with Carman the crickets always ‘fife’ and the bees ‘murmur’), and, to use his own phrase, all the ‘tiny multitudinous sound’ of rustling leaves, dancing grasses, crooning brooks, tinkling rain, which make the instrumentation of the Toy Symphony of Nature:—
Outside, a yellow maple tree,
Shifting upon the silvery blue
With tiny multitudinous sound,
Rustled to let the sunlight through.