Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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

Bliss Carman (1861–1929)

260. On Love

TO the assembled folk

At great St. Kavin’s spoke

Young Brother Amiel on Christmas Eve;

I give you joy, my friends,

That as the round year ends,

We meet once more for gladness by God’s leave.

On other festal days

For penitence or praise

Or prayer we meet, or fullness of thanksgiving;

To-night we calendar

The rising of that star

Which lit the old world with new joy of living.

Ah, we disparage still

The Tidings of Good Will,

Discrediting Love’s gospel now as then!

And with the verbal creed

That God is love indeed,

Who dares make Love his god before all men?

Shall we not, therefore, friends,

Resolve to make amends

To that glad inspiration of the heart;

To grudge not, to cast out

Selfishness, malice, doubt,

Anger and fear; and for the better part,

To love so much, so well,

The spirit cannot tell

The range and sweep of her own boundary!

There is no period

Between the soul and God;

Love is the tide, God the eternal sea.…

To-day we walk by love;

To strive is not enough,

Save against greed and ignorance and might.

We apprehend peace comes

Not with the roll of drums,

But in the still processions of the night.

And we perceive, not awe

But love is the great law

That binds the world together safe and whole.

The splendid planets run

Their courses in the sun;

Love is the gravitation of the soul.

In the profound unknown,

Illumined, fair, and lone,

Each star is set to shimmer in its place.

In the profound divine

Each soul is set to shine,

And its unique appointed orbit trace.

There is no near nor far,

Where glorious Algebar

Swings round his mighty circuit through the night,

Yet where without a sound

The winged seed comes to ground,

And the red leaf seems hardly to alight.

One force, one lore, one need

For satellite and seed,

In the serene benignity for all.

Letting her time-glass run

With star-dust, sun by sun,

In Nature’s thought there is no great nor small.

There is no far nor near

Within the spirit’s sphere.

The summer sunset’s scarlet-yellow wings

Are tinged with the same dye

That paints the tulip’s ply.

And what is colour but the soul of things?

(The earth was without form;

God moulded it with storm,

Ice, flood, and tempest, gleaming tint and hue;

Lest it should come to ill

For lack of spirit still,

He gave it colour,—let the love shine through.)…

Of old, men said, ‘Sin not;

By every line and jot

Ye shall abide; man’s heart is false and vile.’

Christ said, ‘By love alone

In man’s heart is God known;

Obey the word no falsehood can defile.’…

And since that day we prove

Only how great is love,

Nor to this hour its greatness half believe.

For to what other power

Will life give equal dower,

Or chaos grant one moment of reprieve!

Look down the ages’ line,

Where slowly the divine

Evinces energy, puts forth control;

See mighty love alone

Transmuting stock and stone,

Infusing being, helping sense and soul.

And what is energy,

In-working, which bids be

The starry pageant and the life of earth?

What is the genesis

Of every joy and bliss,

Each action dared, each beauty brought to birth?

What hangs the sun on high?

What swells the growing rye?

What bids the loons cry on the Northern lake?

What stirs in swamp and swale,

When April winds prevail,

And all the dwellers of the ground awake?…

What lurks in the deep gaze

Of the old wolf? Amaze,

Hope, recognition, gladness, anger, fear.

But deeper than all these

Love muses, yearns, and sees,

And is the self that does not change nor veer.

Not love of self alone,

Struggle for lair and bone,

But self-denying love of mate and young,

Love that is kind and wise,

Knows trust and sacrifice,

And croons the old dark universal tongue.…

And who has understood

Our brothers of the wood,

Save he who puts off guile and every guise

Of violence,—made truce

With panther, bear, and moose,

As beings like ourselves whom love makes wise?

For they, too, do love’s will,

Our lesser clansmen still;

The House of Many Mansions holds us all;

Courageous, glad and hale,

They go forth on the trail,

Hearing the message, hearkening to the call.…

Open the door to-night

Within your heart, and light

The lantern of love there to shine afar.

On a tumultuous sea

Some straining craft, maybe,

With bearings lost, shall sight love’s silver star.