Bliss Carman (1861-1929)
The Vagabonds
"Such as wake on the night and sleep on the day, and haunt customable taverns and alehouses and routs about, and no man wot from whence they came, nor whither they go." --Old English Statute.
1We are the vagabonds of time,
2 And rove the yellow autumn days,
3When all the roads are gray with rime
4 And all the valleys blue with haze.
5We came unlooked for as the wind
6 Trooping across the April hills,
7When the brown waking earth had dreams
8 Of summer in the Wander Kills.
9How far afield we joyed to fare,
10 With June in every blade and tree!
11Now with the sea-wind in our hair
12 We turn our faces to the sea.
13We go unheeded as the stream
14 That wanders by the hill-wood side,
15Till the great marshes take his hand
16 And lead him to the roving tide.
17The roving tide, the sleeping hills,
18 These are the borders of that zone
19Where they may fare as fancy wills
20 Whom wisdom smiles and calls her own.
21It is a country of the sun,
22 Full of forgotten yesterdays,
23When Time takes Summer in his care,
24 And fills the distance of her gaze.
25It stretches from the open sea
26 To the blue mountains and beyond;
27The world is Vagabondia
28 To him who is a vagabond.
29In the beginning God made man
30 Out of the wandering dust, men say;
31And in the end his life shall be
32 A wandering wind and blown away.
33We are the vagabonds of time,
34 Willing to let the world go by,
35With joy supreme, with heart sublime,
36 And valor in the kindling eye.
37We have forgotten where we slept,
38 And guess not where we sleep to-night,
39Whether among the lonely hills
40 In the pale streamers' ghostly light
41We shall lie down and hear the frost
42 Walk in the dead leaves restlessly,
43Or somewhere on the iron coast
44 Learn the oblivion of the sea.
45It matters not. And yet I dream
46 Of dreams fulfilled and rest somewhere
47Before this restless heart is stilled
48 And all its fancies blown to air.
49Had I my will! . . . The sun burns down
50 And something plucks my garment's hem:
51The robins in their faded brown
52 Would lure me to the south with them.
53'Tis time for vagabonds to make
54 The nearest inn. Far on I hear
55The voices of the Northern hills
56 Gather the vagrants of the year.
57Brave heart, my soul! Let longings be!
58 We have another day to wend.
59For dark or waylay what care we
60 Who have the lords of time to friend?
61And if we tarry or make haste,
62 The wayside sleep can hold no fear.
63Shall fate unpoise, or whim perturb,
64 The calm-begirt in dawn austere?
65There is a tavern, I have heard,
66 Not far, and frugal, kept by One
67Who knows the children of the Word,
68 And welcomes each when day is done.
69Some say the house is lonely set
70 In Northern night, and snowdrifts keep
71The silent door; the hearth is cold,
72 And all my fellows gone to sleep....
73Had I my will! I hear the sea
74 Thunder a welcome on the shore;
75I know where lies the hostelry
76 And who should open me the door.
Notes
3] rime: frost.
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: Bliss Carman, Low Tide on Grand Pré: A Book of Lyrics (New York: C. L. Webster, 1893), pp. 123-29. B-11 7495 Fisher Library.
First publication date:
8
December
1892
Publication date note: Published in New York Independent
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 1998.
Recent editing: 4:2002/2/6
Composition date:
1892
Rhyme: abab
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