Bliss Carman (1861-1929) is a poet whose works are no longer widely known to Americans. Yet in his later life, his was an international reputation, when he was acclaimed as Canada's unofficial poet laureate and gave readings throughout Canada, the United States and Europe.
Today his works may seem overly-sentimental, overly-mystic, flowery, and waaaaay too idealistic. But it is his very deep love and observation of nature as well as that idealism that secures his position as a later poet in the Romantic tradition and which endears him to me, making me want to share this lovely, lovely poem of Thanksgiving with all of you on the very nearly four month anniversary of my membership on DKos. Let the floweriness, the sentiment, the idealism, stand as an antidote to all those stupid debates and the heartbreak and cynicism they elicit.
If you readily sense the influence of transcendentalism in his work, you're right. Carman studied at Harvard, where he was deeply influenced by George Santayana, Josiah Royce and William James and by the Transcendental Movement. It was at Harvard where he became good friends with the American poet Richard Hovey, a follower of Walt Whitman. Further, he shared, through his mother's line, a great-grandparent with Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Let this small diary be dedicated to those of the Occupy Movement, who having heard 'the call to valor', 'strive for the greater freedom, and live for the greater good' and whose tents across this country, though pitched in the urban centers which Carman abjured, are the seeds of a mighty garden of renewal, cities 'built on the hills of our dreams'. It is to them, for the renewal of my spirit, that I have the greatest gratitude and feel the greatest thanksgiving today.
Enjoy your harvest celebration, the autumn colors and the poem.
Bliss Carman
An Autumn Garden
My tent stands in a garden
Of aster and golden-rod,
Tilled by the rain and the sunshine,
And sown by the hand of God, -
An old New England pasture
Abandoned to peace and time,
And by the magic of beauty
Reclaimed to the sublime.
About it are golden woodlands
Of tulip and hickory;
On the open ridge behind it
You may mount to a glimpse of sea, -
The far-off, blue, Homeric
Rim of the world's great shield,
A border of boundless glamor
For the soul's familiar field.
In purple and gray-wrought lichen
The boulders lie in the sun;
Along its grassy footpath,
The white-tailed rabbits run.
The crickets work and chirrup
Through the still afternoon;
And the owl calls at twilight
Under the frosty moon.
The odorous wild grape clambers
Over the tumbling wall,
And through the autumnal quiet
The chestnuts open and fall.
Sharing time's freshness and fragrance,
Part of the earth's great soul,
Here man's spirit may ripen
To wisdom serene and whole.
Shall we not grow with the asters? -
Never reluctant nor sad,
Not counting the cost of being,
Living to dare and be glad.
Shall we not lift with the crickets
A chorus of ready cheer,
Braving the frost of oblivion,
Quick to be happy here?
The deep red cones of the sumach
And the woodbine's crimson sprays
Have bannered the common roadside
For the pageant of passing days.
These are the oracles Nature
Fills with her holy breath,
Giving them glory of color,
Transcending the shadow of death.
Here in the sifted sunlight
A spirit seems to brood
On the beauty and worth of being,
In tranquil, instinctive mood;
And the heart, athrob with gladness
Such as the wise earth knows,
Wells with a full thanksgiving
For the gifts that life bestows:
For the ancient and virile nurture
Of the teeming primordial ground,
For the splendid gospel of color,
The rapt revelations of sound;
For the morning-blue above us
And the rusted gold of the fern,
For the chickadee's call to valor
Bidding the faint-heart turn;
For fire and running water,
Snowfall and summer rain;
For sunsets and quiet meadows,
The fruit and the standing grain;
For the solemn hour of moonrise
Over the crest of trees,
When the mellow lights are kindled
In the lamps of the centuries.
For those who wrought aforetime,
Led by the mystic strain
To strive for the larger freedom,
And live for the greater gain;
For plenty and peace and playtime,
The homely goods of earth,
And for rare immaterial treasures
Accounted of little worth;
For art and learning and friendship,
Where beneficent truth is supreme,
Those everlasting cities
Built on the hills of dream;
For all things growing and goodly
That foster this life, and breed
The immortal flower of wisdom
Out of the mortal seed.
But most of all for the spirit
That can not rest nor bide
In stale and sterile convenience,
Nor safety proven and tried,
But still inspired and driven,
Must seek what better may be,
And up from the loveliest garden
Must climb for a glimpse of sea.