One pardons this over-elaboration in _Ballads of Lost Haven_ because of the likelihood of coming upon a pungent phrase, like a whiff of kelp, that shall transform some arid spot to the blue leagues of sea; and for such a poem as “The Ships of St. John,” with no superfluous lines, with a calm, sabbatic beauty, one is wholly Mr. Carman’s debtor. _Behind the Arras_ has proven a stumbling-block and rock of offence to some of Mr. Carman’s readers, because of its recondite character. They regard it as something esoteric that only the initiate may grasp, whereas its mysticism is half whimsical, and requires no superconsciousness to divine it. Mr. Carman is founding no cult; it pleases him for the nonce to mask his thought in symbols, and there are, alas, minds of the rectangular sort that have no use for symbols! It is a book containing many strong poems, such as “Beyond the Gamut,” “Exit Anima,” and “Hack and Hew,”—a book of spiritual enigmas through which one catches hints of the open secret, ever-alluring, ever-eluding, and follows new clews to the mystery, immanent, yet undivined. Earth one habitat of spirit merely, I must use as richly as I may,— Touch environment with every sense-tip, Drink the well and pass my wander way,— says this sane poet who holds his gift as a tribute, whose philosophy is to affirm and not deny: O hand of mine and brain of mine, be yours, While time endures, To acquiesce and learn! For what we best may dare and drudge and yearn, Let soul discern. And who through the grime and in the babel still sees and hears, Always the flawless beauty,—always the Chord Of the Overword, Dominant, pleading, sure, No truth too small to save and make endure; No good too poor! This is the vision that shall lighten our eyes, quicken our ears, and restore our hope,—the vision which we expect the poet to see and to communicate. He must make the detached and fragmentary beauty a typical revelation; the relative must foreshadow the absolute, as the moon’s arc reveals by its mystic rim the fulness to which it is orbing. It is not by disregarding the tragic, the sombre, the inexplicable, that Mr. Carman comes into his vision. Pain has more than touched him; it has become incorporate in him. _Low Tide on Grand Pré_ has its poignant note; _Ballads of Lost Haven_, its undertone; _Behind the Arras_, its overtone, its sublimation.