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Carman (Bliss) Papers
M0081
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Table of contents
Language of Material:
English
Contributing Institution:
Department of Special Collections and University Archives
Title: Bliss Carman Papers
Creator:
Carman, Bliss, 1861-1929
Identifier/Call Number: M0081
Identifier/Call Number: 19193
Physical Description:
2.5 Linear Feet
(5 boxes)
Date (inclusive): 1889-1927
Open for research. Note that material must be requested at least 36 hours in advance of intended use.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Purchased from various sources, 1932-1945.
Carman, (William) Bliss 1861-1929
Carman was born in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, on April 15, 1861. He was the son of William Carman and Sophia Bliss.
He graduated from the University of New Brunswick in 1881 with honors in Latin and Greek. He received his masters from the
University of New Brunswick. He read law and studied engineering. Later he taught school from 1884-1886. Though he traveled
some, he lived in New Canaan, Conn., and he always retained his Canadian citizenship.
Carman was Canada's major poet, generally referred to as the Poet Laureate of Canada. He was awarded the Lorne Pierce Medal,
which is the highest literary distinction a Canadian can win. Though he is primarily known for his poetry, he served as assistant
editor of the
New York Independent and editor of
Chap Book in Boston. Also, he worked on
The Cosmopolitan Magazine,
Current Literature, and
The Atlantic Monthly.
| (1888) | Death in April. |
| (1889) | Low Tide on Grand Pré. |
| 1893 | Low Tide on Grand Pré. |
| 1894 | Low Tide on Grand Pré. |
| 1894 | Saint Kavin. |
| 1894 | Songs from Vagabondia. |
| 1895 | At Michaelmas. |
| 1895 | Behind the Arras. |
| 1895 | A Seamark. |
| 1896 | More Songs from Vagabondia. |
| 1897 | Ballads of Lost Haven. |
| 1897 | The Girl in the Poster. |
| 1898 | By the Aurelian Wall. |
| 1898 | The Green Book of the Bards. |
| 1899 | Behind the Arras. |
| 1899 | The Vengeance of Noel Brassard. |
| 1899 | A Winter Holiday. |
| 1901 | Christmas Eve at S. Kavin's. |
| 1901 | Last Songs from Vagabondia. |
| 1902 | Ballads and Lyrics. |
| 1902 | A Coronation Ode. |
| 1902 | From the Book of Myths. |
| 1902 | Ode on the Coronation of King Edward. |
| 1902 | Sappho: One hundred lyrics. |
| 1903 | From the Book of Myths. |
| 1903 | From the Green Book of the Bards. |
| 1903 | A Vision of Sappho. |
| 1903 | The Word at St. Kavin's. |
| 1904 | From the Book of Myths. |
| 1904 | Poems. |
| 1904 | Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics. |
| 1904 | Songs from a Northern Garden. |
| 1904 | Songs of the Sea Children. |
| 1905 | From the Book of Valentines. |
| 1905 | Low Tide on Grand Pré. |
| 1905 | Poems. |
| 1905 | A Vision of Sappho. |
| 1906 | Pipes of Pan. |
| 1906 | The Princess of the Tower. |
| 1906 | Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics. |
| 1907 | The Gate of Peace. |
| 1909 | The Gate of Peace. |
| 1909 | Lyrics from Sappho. |
| 1909 | The Rough Rider |
| 1911 | A Painter's Holiday. |
| 1911 | A Painter's Holiday. |
| 1912 | Echoes from Vagabondia. |
| 1913 | Daughters of Dawn. |
| 1914 | Earth Deities. |
| 1916 | April Airs. |
| 1916 | Four Sonnets. |
| 1918 | The Man of the Marne. |
| 1921 | Later Poems. |
| (1923) | Ballads and Lyrics. |
| 1925 | Far Horizons. |
| 1904 | The Friendship of Art. |
| 1904 | The Kinship of Nature. |
| 1905 | The Poetry of Life. |
| 1908 | The Making of Personality. |
| 1911 | Address to the Graduating Class. |
| (1911) | Apostle of Personal Harmonizing. |
| (1918) | James Whitcomb Riley. |
| (1920) | An Open Letter. |
| 1926 | Talks on Poetry and Life. |
| (1887) | A Woman's Exile. |
| 1889 | Gwendolen (and) Marjorie. |
| 1889 | The Kelpie Riders. |
| 1889 | Marian Drurie. |
| (1890) | The End of the Trail. |
| (1890) | Pulvis et Umbra. |
| 1890 | A Windflower. |
| 1891 | The Last Watch. |
| 1891 | A Pagan's Prayer. |
| 1891 | A Sailor's Wedding. |
| 1891 | The Trail of the Bugles. |
| 1891 | The Yule Guest. |
| 1892 | An April Alibi. |
| 1892 | The Grave Tree. |
| 1892 | In the Heart of the Hills. |
| 1892 | Marjory Darrow. |
| 1892 | The Master of the Isles. |
| 1892 | Olaf Hjorward. |
| 1892 | The White Gull. |
| 1893 | Morning. |
| 1898 | A Winter Holiday. |
| 1901 | Daisies (and) Marigolds. |
| 1901 | The Sceptics. |
| 1901 | The Spell. |
| 1901 | A Vagabond Song. |
| 1908 | The Path to Sankoty. |
| 1910 | The Madonna. |
| 1911 | Messiah. |
| 1913 | Christmas Eve. |
| 1913 | To Those Who Wear Shoes. |
| 1916 | The Yule Tree. |
| 1920 | A Valentine. |
| 1922 | Vestigia. |
| 1924 | All in All (N.B.) |
| 1924 | In Excelsis. |
BLISS CARMAN: 1861-1929
True poets, like true marriages, are made in heaven, and their coming here confounds statistical averages. They cannot be
foretold, nor their influence measured. They are unaccountable and cannot account for them selves. Not at first are they aware
that they are alien to the rest of us; or do they feel that their poetry makes us known to our true selves, a kinship that
the world had caused us to forget? We are less ignoble than we had thought, and lofty oracles of the Prime, which we had disbelieved,
become credible once more.
We discover poets in secret moments, and they so outride the orbit of daily experience that we are prone to doubt their authenticity.
Is not this strange new kindling of beauty in our souls due to some happy mood or insight of our own? But the poem, as we
ponder it, presently convicts us of error: we could not, of ourselves, have begotten such thoughts, such emotions. There is
a fresh divinity manifesting itself on the page, as of dewy roses miraculously blooming and fragrant in the desert. It is
beyond forecasting, unprecedented, and yet not new in the common sense; it is primeval, like each morning's sunrise, which
never till now was, nor can be again. And as each violin of the great masters has its special tone and quality, so is each
true poet, in spite of his appeal to the whole human spirit of man, himself and unlike any other, with an eye and a voice
to reveal and interpret every occasion of life.
He is a prophet, too, and an historian and biographer, and shows how these functions should be performed; he gives you a key
to every door, a master key, the simple wards of which inexplicably fit unexpected locks. Plainly he is a magician, whose
magic operates even without his personal privity. We learn through him that all things are wonderful, yet transparent as the
eyes of a child. The great mysteries are not puzzles, but veils that clarify what they had seemed to conceal; as it were,
the chiaroscuro of creation. Existence would be an intolerable glare without their gracious mitigation.
Bliss Carman was of a skyey nature, and like the sky ever brooding lovingly above the earth. He had seasons of sadness-earth-engendered
clouds-but the sun and the untroubled blue were always beyond, and the clouds themselves were engendered of light and love.
A strong and tranquil nature, but sensitive to the lightest touch of emotion, though not to be lightly disturbed; for he had
acquired a penetrating and genial philosophy, not of dogmas, but of thoughtful insight; and so prone was he to be amused by
the perversity and paradox of things, that had he not been a poet he might have been one of the great humorists. You often
detect a smile beneath the composure of the poem, but this was oftener manifest in personal intercourse. Under strong pressure,
a low privately owned chuckle was sometimes audible, or rather visible in the vibration of his wide shoulders.
His figure, lightly built and perfectly symmetrical, rose to a height of fully six feet three inches, though he had no use
for high-heeled shoes. His movements and postures were careless, but graceful; his head, superbly proportioned, sat on a neck
round and firm as a pillar. He was of blond complexion, with dense and abundant hair, with a wave through it, and he often
allowed it to reach a length disapproved by hairdressers, but Carman was averse to spending time and thought on personal adornment;
after his cold bath at sunrise he became inattentive to attire and fashion, though unconscious of eccentricities until they
reached a stage where friends felt impelled to interfere. But his bodily movements were finely co-ordinated and controlled;
his lofty stature, supple as a faun's, was hardly noticeable until you measured it against your own. His face was classically
handsome; a broad forehead with level brows and gray eyes, kindly, but with an imperial sweep of the lids; a generous mouth
with lips of the Apollo curve, a powerful nose, an aspect of kindliness and dignity. I have never seen a face molded on lines
of greater masculine beauty, expressing authority and human modesty combined. He had no more egotism than a tree or a mountain,
making no demands upon a companion, but royal in gifts.
This man, always young, always mature, never old, was born to the purest crown of poetry. Our Lady of Snows (New Brunswick)
was his mother, but he came southward in his youth, though never losing touch with the North, where he was loved and honored,
and became in due time their poet laureate. He was always poor as Elijah, and the ravens must often have been his familiars;
he was always diligent in his calling, but never allowed it to call him away from the beauty and nature that were the source
of his inspiration. He wrote much, though not diffusely, nor in any line heedless of the Muse. In cities he was a passing
presence; his life and activity were in the country, and anthologists dubbed him a nature-poet. But nature, as he conceived
it, is a broad term. No theme was alien to him: forest and sea, pasture and mountain, the miles of wandering road, the wayside
scenes, the wayside inns and gossips, with the jug of brown cider and the hearty fare. Yet from these immediate contacts he
could turn, in another mood, and write a wondrous volume of a hundred lyrics of Sappho-those long-lost lyrics of which poets
dream; but alone of them all, Carman, mingling love and beauty with his longing, ventured to listen for the immortal music
of her lips, and to write down what he seemed to hear.
And did Sappho, across the abyss of forty centuries, respond to his appeal, and admit him to the passionate intimacy of her
chamber? I think the temperature of untrodden space has chilled the verses somewhat, and that something of the mysterious
magic has been lost on the way. But it is a beautiful, gentle, and reverent effort. Sappho, indeed, esteemed inimitable by
contemporaries, has become truly so ere this. Were her book to be now retrieved, in truth, from the unexplored libraries of
remote antiquity I should hesitate to read it lest the renown of her spirit should be found to surpass the actuality. Nothing
mortal could be so supreme as what we have come to believe it was; we may wisely be content to forego the reality for the
ideal. And such, I am sure, would be Carman's own opinion. Neither in this nor in his other poetry could he satisfy himself;
from whatever height he reached, higher heights would beckon him.
In many other directions did he pursue his art, joyfully but humbly, without arrogance, but with self-surrender. What the
Muse would give him, he took, but felt that his transcript was fallible. His ditties often have the charm of Shakespeare's
songs; his serious poems are fearless and harmonious. But there is the feeling in the reader's mind, after all is done, that
his great poem was never written. The verses are like strains of the acolian harp or like the rune and play of sea waves on
the shore, always musical, but not rising to such splendid culminations as their beauty seems to demand. He prepares us for
more than he bestows. It is left us to surmise that no culmination could fulfill the promise of such preludes.
I look up from reading him with the thought that he has given me the true record of a soul on its journey through the world.
He is as catholic as Walt Whitman in his acceptance of any theme life offers, but so controlled and modest otherwise, so remote
from blatancy and outcries, that no sober comparison between them can be made. Whitman, perhaps, is the favorite of the democracy-and
democracy has its divine aspects-but Carman's genius has melted experience in his alembic and recreated it, stamped with the
image of his own mind and heart. He is complete master of the instruments and technique of his art, and does not fear to speak
as simply as a child; he uses meter for his purpose and is not straitened by it; or again he discloses its value in conveying
what words cannot tell. He liberates us from tyranny of rule and precedent but not to wander in the wilderness. From first
to last his words are truth, unafraid, but not dogmatic. Through the flow of his verses we see in glimpses the rocky constancy
of the bed of the stream, but he does not obtrude it. He is beauty's observer and worshiper but passes unseeing by the altars
of goddesses whose fair outside veils foulness within.
Nor would he wholly restrict himself to the poetic form. He published several volumes of essays on the conduct and vision
of life, which not only are valuable in thought, but show him to possess control of the prose form in both elegance and simplicity.
They announce no startling departures from modern thought, but are often illuminated with a naïve clear-sightedness that reveals
rarity and distinction in things we had regarded as of everyday. Yet even in his felicities, we feel that he is wasting time.
He cannot compete with his own poetry, which opens to him fairylands inaccessible to the sober march of prose. I am glad he
did not end on this bypath; he returned presently to the highway, always high where he trod it.
We met forty years ago and were friends at once, though often parted for long intervals. Though an outdoor man, and fond of
long walks, he was not robust, but his death at 68 was a surprise. But I can be glad that he is gone; he will still be my
companion, and mortal conditions for him were not always easy. To the last he was a devoted lover of his country, and would
spend some months of the year in revisiting it, meeting with a personal affection from the people that deeply touched him.
In all the great concerns of his career he was fortunate and happy. Last summer, in the Catskills, after we had met for an
hour and said goodby. I saw him striding away in his frontier garb, with his long elastic swing. We had been looking for him
here in California this season, but it is not here that our next meeting will be. He is off among the Delectable Mountains,
meditating, perhaps, the supreme poem that he could not achieve on earth.
Page from library catalog:
https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/4082768
[Identification of item] Bliss Carman Papers , M0081, Dept. of Special Collections, Stanford Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
Personal correspondence mainly with Washington Irving Way and Richard Hovey and his wife Henrietta Hovey. A few comments on
world affairs but primarily concerned with his personal life and travels. References to Hovey about their joint work
Vagabondia. ca. 250 letters and postcards.
Typescript of a book ed. by Carman.
Oxford Book of American Verse. ca. 60 poems typescript and holograph, some signed by the author.
Typescript articles--all about health and personal appearance
Broadsheets of ca. 30 poems
Misc. printed material including mainly printed articles by him and some biographical articles about him.ca.10 pieces
ca. 15 photographs of buildings and landscapes, place unknown
ca. 150 clippings (some duplicates) mostly about his life and travels and various awards. Also published poems and articles
by Carman.
Notes for a Carman bibliography by Nathan Van Pattan (3 drafts)
The bulk of these materials are believed to be in the public domain. There are no restrictions on use of public domain materials.
For items still in copyright, while Special Collections is the owner of the physical and digital items, permission to examine
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