* * * * * *
"And that we took into our hands—
Spirit of life, or subtler thing—
Breathed on us there, and loosed the bands
Of death, and taught us, whispering,
The secret of some wonder thing."
That the poem is faintly, vaguely reminiscent of Swinburne's Félise is only an added charm. Like a refrain of music lingers the last stanza:
"The night has fallen, and the tide ...
Now and again comes drifting home,
Across these aching barrens wide,
A sigh like driven wind or foam:
In grief the flood is bursting home!"
Mr. Carman has kept faith with the poetic dreams of his youth. Could there be found in the songs of any land a lyric more subtle, more delicately exquisite in expression, than this which he calls The Unreturning?
"The old, eternal spring once more
Comes back the sad, eternal way;
With tender, rosy light, before
The going out of day.
"The great white moon across my door
A shadow in the twilight stirs;
But now, forever, comes no more
That wondrous look of Hers!"
Master of many and varied orders of song, Mr. Carman has the rare art of the ballad; and his blank verse, as his lyrical, is enticing. A series of the daintiest lyrics, Songs of the Sea Children, call up a very fairyland in which to wander. One of these (the lyrics form a sequence) thus portrays the mysteries of spring:
"In the blue mystery of the April woods,
Thy spirit now
Makes musical the rainbow's interludes,
And pink the peach-tree bough.