ning of it. I grant that you will find little or nothing in it
all to remind you of the grim realities and vexing social problems of
this modern existence of ours; but to say or to suggest that these
things do not exist for Mr. Carman is to say or to suggest something
which is the reverse of true. The truth is, he is aware of them as
only one with the sensitive organism of a poet can be; but he does not
feel that he has a call or mission to remedy them, and still less to
sing of them. He therefore leaves the immediate problems of the day to
those who choose, or are led, to occupy themselves therewith, and turns
resolutely away to dwell upon those things which for him possess
infinitely greater importance.

"What are they?" one who knows Mr. Carman only as, say, a lyrist of
spring or as a singer of the delights of vagabondia probably will ask
in some wonder. Well, the things which concern him above all, I would
answer, are first, and naturally, the beauty and wonder of this world
of ours, and next the mystery of the earthly pilgrimage of the human
soul out of eternity and back into it again.

The poems in the present volume--which, by the way, can boast the high
honor of being the very first regular Canadian edition of his
work--will be evidence ample and conclusive to every reader, I am sure,
of the place which

The perennial enchanted
Lovely world and all its lore

occupy in the heart and soul of Bliss Carman, as well as of the magical
power with which he is able to convey the deep and unfailing
satisfaction and delight which they possess for him. They, however,
represent his latest period (he has had three well-defined periods),
comprising selections from three of his last published volumes: _The
Rough Rider_, _Echoes from Vagabondia_, and _April Airs_, together with
a number of new poems, and do not show, except here and there and by
hints and flashes, how great is his preoccupation with the problem of
man's existence--

the hidden import
Of man's eternal plight.

This is manifest most in certain of his earlier books, for in these he
turns and returns to the greatest of all the problems of man almost
constantly, probing, with consummate and almost unrivalled use of the
art of expression, for the secret which surely, he clearly feels, lies
hidden somewhere, to be discovered if one could but pierce deeply
enough. Pick up _Behind the Arras_, and as you turn over page after
page you cannot bu