Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Nicholson & Lee, eds. The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. 1917.

Bliss Carman (1861–1929)

259. A Creature Catechism

LORD, said a flying fish,

Below the foundations of storm

We feel the primal wish

Of the earth take form.

Through the dim green water-fire

We see the red sun loom,

And the quake of a new desire

Takes hold on us down in the gloom.

No more can the filmy drift

Nor draughty currents buoy

Our whim to its bent, nor lift

Our heart to the height of its joy.

When sheering down to the Line

Come polar tides from the North,

Thy silver folk of the brine

Must glimmer and forth.

Down in the crumbling mill

Grinding eternally,

We are the type of thy will

To the tribes of the sea.

Lord, said a butterfly,

Out of a creeping thing,

For days in the dust put by,

The spread of a wing

Emerges with pulvil of gold

On a tissue of green and blue,

And there is thy purpose of old

Unspoiled and fashioned anew.

Ephemera, ravellings of sky

And shreds of the Northern light,

We age in a heart-beat and die

Under the eaves of night.

What if the small breath quail,

Or cease at a touch of the frost?

Not a tremor of joy shall fail,

Nor a pulse be lost.

This fluttering life, never still,

Survives to oblivion’s despair.

We are the type of thy will

To the tribes of the air.

Lord, said a maple seed,

Though well we are wrapped and bound,

We are the first to give heed,

When thy bugles give sound.

We banner thy House of the Hills

With green and vermilion and gold,

When the floor of April thrills

With the myriad stir of the mould,

And her hosts for migration prepare.

We too have the veined twin-wings,

Vans for the journey of air.

With the urge of a thousand springs

Pent for a germ in our side,

We perish of joy, being dumb,

That our race may be and abide

For aeons to come.

When rivulet answers to rill

In snow-blue valleys unsealed,

We are the type of thy will

To the tribes of the field.

Lord, when the time is ripe,

Said a frog through the quiet rain,

We take up the silver pipe

For the pageant again.

When the melting wind of the South

Is over meadow and pond,

We draw the breath of thy mouth,

Reviving the ancient bond.

Then must we fife and declare

The unquenchable joy of earth,—

Testify hearts still dare,

Signalize beauty’s worth.

Then must we rouse and blow

On the magic reed once more,

Till the glad earth-children know

Not a thing to deplore.

When rises the marshy trill

To the soft spring night’s profound,

We are the type of thy will

To the tribes of the ground.

Lord, said an artist born,

We leave the city behind

For the hills of open morn,

For fear of our kind.

Our brother they nailed to a tree

For sedition; they bully and curse

All those whom love makes free.

Yet the very winds disperse

Rapture of birds and brooks,

Colours of sea and cloud,—

Beauty not learned of books,

Truth that is never loud.

We model our joy into clay,

Or help it with line and hue,

Or hark for its breath in stray

Wild chords and new.

For to-morrow can only fulfil

Dreams which to-day have birth;

We are the type of thy will

To the tribes of the earth.