A Vagabond Song
There is something in the autumn that is native to my blood--Touch of manner, hint of mood;And my heart is like a rhyme,With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time.
The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cryOf bugles going by.And my lonely spirit thrillsTo see the frosty asters like a smoke upon the hills.
There is something in October sets the gypsy blood astir;We must rise and follow her,When from every hill of flameShe calls and calls each vagabond by name.
Words in this poem
- astir adv.
- Stirring; in a state of activity or motion; out of bed. [Pref. a- + stir.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Vagabond Song is in the public domain. This text is taken from More Songs From Vagabondia, Project Gutenberg ebook #18007; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Bliss Carman, A Vagabond Song, in More Songs from Vagabondia (1896), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #18007, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/carman-vagabondia/a-vagabond-song.html, id L24714.
Form and metre
A Vagabond Song is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is AABB, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter.
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 --AA blood · mood · rhymeA · timeA
- 2 AABB cryA · byA · thrillsB · hillsB
- 3 AABB astirA · herA · flameB · nameB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| There is something in the autumn that is native to my blood-- | 15 | ··/˘··/˘··/˘··· |
| Touch of manner, hint of mood; | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| And my heart is like a rhyme, | 7 | ······· |
| With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time. | 15 | ··/˘··/˘··/˘/˘· |
| The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry | 13 | ·/˘··/˘······ |
| Of bugles going by. | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| And my lonely spirit thrills | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| To see the frosty asters like a smoke upon the hills. | 14 | ···/˘/˘······· |
| There is something in October sets the gypsy blood astir; | 15 | ··/˘·˘/˘··/˘·˘/ |
| We must rise and follow her, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| When from every hill of flame | 8 | ··/˘˘··· |
| She calls and calls each vagabond by name. | 9 | ·····/˘·· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.