Songs from Vagabondia Part 1

Songs from Vagabondia.

by Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey.

VAGABONDIA.

Off with the fetters That chafe and restrain!

Off with the chain!

Here Art and Letters, Music and wine, And Myrtle and Wanda, The winsome witches, Blithely combine.

Here are true riches, Here is Golconda, Here are the Indies, Here we are free-- Free as the wind is, Free, as the sea.

Free!

Houp-la!

What have we To do with the way Of the Pharisee?

We go or we stay At our own sweet will; We think as we say, And we say or keep still At our own sweet will, At our own sweet will.

Here we are free To be good or bad, Sane or mad, Merry or grim As the mood may be,-- Free as the whim Of a spook on a spree,-- Free to be oddities, Not mere commodities, Stupid and salable, Wholly available, Ranged upon shelves; Each with his puny form In the same uniform, Cramped and disabled; We are not labelled, We are ourselves.

Here is the real, Here the ideal; Laughable hards.h.i.+p Met and forgot, Glory of bards.h.i.+p-- World's bloom and world's blot; The shock and the jostle, The mock and the push, But hearts like the throstle A-joy in the bush; Wits that would merrily Laugh away wrong, Throats that would verily Melt h.e.l.l in Song.

What though the dimes be Elusive as rhymes be, And Bessie, with finger Uplifted, is warning That breakfast next morning (A subject she's scorning) Is mighty uncertain!

What care we? Linger A moment to kiss-- No time's amiss To a vagabond's ardor-- Thee finish the larder And pull down the curtain.

Unless ere the kiss come, Black Richard or Bliss come, Or Tom with a flagon, Or Karl with a jag on-- Then up and after The joy of the night With the hounds of laughter To follow the flight Of the fox-foot hours That double and run Through brakes and bowers Of folly and fun.

With the comrade heart For a moment's play, And the comrade heart For a heavier day, And the comrade heart Forever and aye.

For the joy of wine Is not for long; And the joy of song Is a dream of s.h.i.+ne; But the comrade heart Shall outlast art And a woman's love The fame thereof.

But wine for a sign Of the love we bring!

And song for an oath That Love is king!

And both, and both For his wors.h.i.+pping!

Then up and away Till the break of day, With a heart that's merry, And a Tom-and-Jerry, And a derry-down-derry-- What's that you say.

You highly respectable Buyers and sellers?

We should be decenter?

Not as we please inter Custom, frugality, Use and morality In the delectable Depths of wine-cellars?

Midnights of revel, And noondays of song!

Is it so wrong?

Go to the Devil!

I tell you that we, While you are smirking And lying and s.h.i.+rking life's duty of duties, Honest sincerity, We are in verity Free!

Free to rejoice In blisses and beauties!

Free as the voice Of the wind as it pa.s.ses!

Free as the bird In the weft of the gra.s.ses!

Free as the word Of the sun to the sea-- Free!

A WAIF.

Do you know what it is to be vagrant born?

A waif is only a waif. And so, For another idle hour I sit, In large content while the fire burns low.

I gossip here to my crony heart Of the day just over, and count it one Of the royal elemental days, Though its dreams were few and its deeds were none.

Outside, the winter; inside, the warmth And a sweet oblivion of turmoil. Why?

All for a gentle girlish hand With its warm and lingering good-bye.

THE JOYS OF THE ROAD.

Now the joys of the road are chiefly these: A crimson touch on the hard-wood trees;

A vagrant's morning wide and blue, In early fall when the wind walks, too;

A shadowy highway cool and brown, Alluring up and enticing down

From rippled water to dappled swamp, From purple glory to scarlet pomp;

The outward eye, the quiet will, And the striding heart from hill to hill;

The tempter apple over the fence; The cobweb bloom on the yellow quince;

The palish asters along the wood,-- A lyric touch of the solitude;

An open hand, an easy shoe.

And a hope to make the day go through,--

Another to sleep with, and a third To wake me up at the voice of a bird;

The resonant far-listening morn, And the hoa.r.s.e whisper of the corn;

The crickets mourning their comrades lost, In the night's retreat from the gathering frost;

(Or is it their slogan, plaintive and shrill, As they beat on their corselets, valiant still?)

A hunger fit for the kings of the sea, And a loaf of bread for d.i.c.kon and me;

A thirst like that of the Thirsty Sword, And a jug of cider on the board;