I have
known few poets anywhere, and certainly no poet
in America, who had so dedicated himself to the
service of poetry as Bliss Carman. I do not mean
that he went about showing himself as belonging
to that service. He did nothing of the kind. He
had too much humor and too much interest in daily
happenings to show himself as anything else than
a companionable man. But in the struggle which
every visionary must have with the world he had
no divided heart; quietly, without any argumentation,
he took the side opposite to the world’s. "Getting
and spending we lay waste our Powers," Wordsworth
lamented. Bliss Carman did with the minimum of
getting and spending. "Little we see in Nature
that is ours," that noble lament goes on.
Bliss Carman had earned the right to say these
words with less bitterness than most visionaries.
His life
had frugal dignity which was in itself a rare
and a fine achievement. The tweeds that he wore
had given him long service; they were always carefully
pressed and spotless; that wide-brimmed hat he
had worn for many seasons. Yet there was always
something in his attire that corresponded to the
gaiety and color of his mind—a bright neck-tie, a silver chain, a turquoise
ornament that some Indian friend had bestowed
upon him. He was a tall man. But that exceptional
build was contained in a thin integument. He bled
easily; he was sensitive over every part of his
great frame. However, that irritability that usually
goes with the thin skin was no part of his nature.
Bliss Carman was above everything else a sweet-natured
man. I am sure that no one ever parted from him
without thinking, "I hope I shall see dear
Bliss Carman again."
He was
saved from being a solitary by his friendship
with Dr. Morris Lee King and Mrs. Mary Perry King—a friendship which indeed gave sanctuary
to the poet, and unquestionably added to his length
of days. His health was precarious when he came
to New Canaan twenty-two years ago. But these
last ten years, I have heard him say, found him
more robust in health than any time since his
early youth. Every morning he would leave his
rooms in the village and walk to Sunshine House
where Dr. and Mrs. King live; there he would spend
the day, writing, reading, walking, and dreaming,
returning to the village at night. These last
poems were written in "the Sun Room"
as part of an uncompleted collection, and reflect
the house in which he has so much peace and content,
and the garden that the wild creatures were not
shut out of, and reflect, above all, the companionship
that strengthened and inspirited him.
His ever
dear native land, Canada, gave him its highest
honours in his later years. He was born in New
Brunswick—New Brunswick which, as his comrade of
the old days, Richard Le Gallienne, in his tribute
to Carman, reminded us, "when it belonged
to France, went by the more charming name of Acadie,
or Acadia, immortalized by Longfellow, and as
near to Arcady in its romantic natural features
as its name. It is a region of glittering lakes,
rivers and bays, rocky ravines and great forests,
abounding in wild life, a paradise of the adventurous
canoeist," and it was a treasured memory
of the poet’s.
But his
later poetry belongs to New England, to Connecticut,
and particularly to "the little valley of
the Silvermine." Here he died suddenly on
the morrow of a quiet working-day. Then the first
young birds were leaving the nests; it was a day
on which those who were close to him could say
as they thought upon him, a verse of one of his
own poems,—
