Laurel · Bliss Carman · More Songs from Vagabondia

At Michaelmas

Bliss Carman (1861–1929) · 1896

common measure · ABAB · 112 lines · from More Songs from Vagabondia

About the time of Michael's feastAnd all his angels,There comes a word to man and beastBy dark evangels.

Then hearing what the wild things sayTo one another,Those creatures first born of our grayMysterious Mother,

The greatness of the world's unrestSteals through our pulses;Our own life takes a meaning guessedFrom the torn dulse's.

The draft and set of deep sea-tidesSwirling and flowing,Bears every filmy flake that rides,Grandly unknowing.

The sunlight listens; thin and fineThe crickets whistle;And floating midges fill the shineLike a seeding thistle.

The hawkbit flies his golden flagFrom rocky pasture,Bidding his legions never lagThrough morning's vasture.

Soon we shall see the red vines rampThrough forest borders,And Indian summer breaking campTo silent orders.

The glossy chestnuts swell and burstTheir prickly housesAgog at news which reached them firstIn sap's carouses.

The long noons turn the ribstons red,The pippins yellow;The wild duck from his reedy bedSummons his fellow.

The robins keep the underbrushSongless and wary,As though they feared some frostier hushMight bid them tarry;

Perhaps in the great North they heardOf silence fallingUpon the world without a word,White and appalling.

The ash-tree and the lady-fern,In russet frondage,Proclaim 'tis time for our returnTo vagabondage.

All summer idle have we kept;But on a morning,Where the blue hazy mountains slept,A scarlet warning

Disturbs our day-dream with a start;A leaf turns over;And every earthling is at heartOnce more a rover.

All winter we shall toil and plod,Eating and drinking;But now's the little time when GodSets folk to thinking.

"Consider," says the quiet sun,"How far I wander;Yet when had I not time on oneMore flower to squander?"

"Consider," says the restless tide,"My endless labor;Yet when was I content besideMy nearest neighbor?"

So wander-lust to wander-lure,As seed to season,Must rise and wend, possessed and sureIn sweet unreason.

For doorstone and repose are good,And kind is duty;But joy is in the solitudeWith shy-heart beauty.

And Truth is one whose ways are meekBeyond foretelling;And far his journey who would seekHer lowly dwelling.

She leads him by a thousand heights,Lonelily faring,With sunrise and with eagle flightsTo mate his daring.

For her he fronts a vaster fogThan Leif of yore did,Voyaging for continents no logHas yet recorded.

He travels by a polar star,Now bright, now hidden,For a free land, though rest be farAnd roads forbidden,

Till on a day with sweet coarse breadAnd wine she stays him,Then in a cool and narrow bedTo slumber lays him.

So we are hers. And, fellows mineOf fin and feather,By shady wood and shadowy brine,When comes the weather

For migrants to be moving on,By lost indentureYou flock and gather and are gone:The old adventure!

I too have my unwritten date,My gypsy presage;And on the brink of fall I waitThe darkling message.

The sign, from prying eyes concealed,Is yet how flagrant!Here's ragged-robin in the field,A simple vagrant.

Words in this poem 27

unrest n.: Want of rest or repose; unquietness; sleeplessness; uneasiness; disquietude.
filmy a.: Composed of film or films.
flake n.: A paling; a hurdle. [prov. Eng.] [Cf. Icel. flaki, fleki, Dan. flage, D. vlaak.]
grandly adv.: In a grand manner.
hawkbit n.: The fall dandelion (Leontodon autumnale).
shall v. i.: To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
ramp v. i.: To spring; to leap; to bound; to rear; to prance; to become rampant; hence, to frolic; to romp. [F. ramper to creep, OF., to climb; of German origin; cf. G. raffen to snatch, LG. & D. rapen. See Rap to snatch, and cf. Romp.]
agog a.: In eager desire; eager; astir. [Cf. F. gogue fun, perhaps of Celtic origin.]
underbrush n.: Shrubs, small trees, and the like, in a wood or forest, growing beneath large trees; undergrowth.
songless a.: Destitute of the power of song; without song; as, songless birds; songless woods.
appalling a.: Such as to appall; as, an appalling accident.
vagabondage n.: The condition of a vagabond; a state or habit of wandering about in idleness; vagrancy. [Cf. F. vagabondage.]
hazy a.: Thick with haze; somewhat obscured with haze; not clear or transparent. [From Haze, n.]
earthling n.: An inhabitant of the earth; a mortal. [Earth + -ling.]
rover n.: One who practices robbery on the seas; a pirate. [D. roover a robber. See Rove, v. i.]
plod v. i.: To travel slowly but steadily; to trudge. [Gf. Gael. plod a clod, a pool; also, to strike or pelt with a clod or clods.]
folk n.: In Anglo-Saxon times, the people of a group of townships or villages; a community; a tribe. [AS. folc; akin to D. volk, OS. & OHG. folk, G. volk, Icel. f, Sw. & Dan. folk, Lith. pulkas crowd, and perh. to E. follow.]
wend n.: A large extent of ground; a perambulation; a circuit.
unreason v. t.: To undo, disprove, or refute by reasoning. [1st pref. un- + reason.]
doorstone n.: The stone forming a threshold.
yore adv.: In time long past; in old time; long since. [OE. , yare, , AS. geára;akin to geár a year, E. year. Year.]
indenture n.: The act of indenting, or state of being indented. [OE. endenture, OF. endenture, LL. indentura a deed in duplicate, with indented edges. See the Note below. See Indent.]
unwritten a.: Not written; not reduced to writing; oral; as, unwritten agreements.
brink n.: The edge, margin, or border of a steep place, as of a precipice; a bank or edge, as of a river or pit; a verge; a border; as, the brink of a chasm. Also Fig. [Dan. brink edge, verge; akin to Sw. brink declivity, hill, Icel. brekka; cf. LG. brink a grassy hill, W. bryn hill, bryncyn hillock.]
darkling a.: Becoming dark or gloomy; frowing.
prying a.: Inspecting closely or impertinently.
flagrant a.: Flaming; inflamed; glowing; burning; ardent. [L. flagrans, -antis, p.pr. of flagrate to burn, akin to Gr. flagrant. Cf. Flame, Phlox.]

Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.

About this text

At Michaelmas 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, At Michaelmas, in More Songs from Vagabondia (1896), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #18007, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/carman-vagabondia/at-michaelmas.html, id L24717.

Form and metre

At Michaelmas is 112 lines in 28 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 22 of its 28 stanzas. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%).

See other poems in common measure.

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 ABAB feast^A · angels^B · beast^A · evangels^B
2 ABAB say^A · another^B · gray^A · mother^B
3 A-A- unrest^A · pulses · guessed^A · dulse's
4 ABAB tides^A · flowing^B · rides^A · unknowing^B
5 ABAB fine^A · whistle^B · shine^A · thistle^B
6 ABAB flag^A · pasture^B · lag^A · vasture^B
7 ABAB ramp^A · borders^B · camp^A · orders^B
8 A-A- burst^A · houses · first^A · carouses
9 ABAB red^A · yellow^B · bed^A · fellow^B
10 ABAB underbrush^A · wary^B · hush^A · tarry^B
11 A-A- heard^A · falling · word^A · appalling
12 ABAB fern^A · frondage^B · return^A · vagabondage^B
13 ABAB kept^A · morning^B · slept^A · warning^B
14 ABAB start^A · over^B · heart^A · rover^B
15 ABAB plod^A · drinking^B · god^A · thinking^B
16 ABAB sun^A · wander^B · one^A · squander^B
17 ABAB tide^A · labor^B · beside^A · neighbor^B
18 A-A- lure^A · season · sure^A · unreason
19 -A-A good · duty^A · solitude · beauty^A
20 ABAB meek^A · foretelling^B · seek^A · dwelling^B
21 A-A- heights^A · faring · flights^A · daring
22 ABAB fog^A · did^B · log^A · recorded^B
23 ABAB star^A · hidden^B · far^A · forbidden^B
24 ABAB bread^A · him^B · bed^A · him^B
25 ABAB mine^A · feather^B · brine^A · weather^B
26 ABAB on^A · indenture^B · gone^A · adventure^B
27 ABAB date^A · presage^B · wait^A · message^B
28 ABAB concealed^A · flagrant^B · field^A · vagrant^B

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 common measure. How this is done.

Line	Syl.	Stress
About the time of Michael's feast	8	·····/˘·
And all his angels,	5	···/˘
There comes a word to man and beast	8	········
By dark evangels.	5	·····
Then hearing what the wild things say	8	·/˘·····
To one another,	5	··˘/˘
Those creatures first born of our gray	8	·/˘···/·
Mysterious Mother,	6	˘/˘˘/˘
The greatness of the world's unrest	8	·/˘···˘/
Steals through our pulses;	6	··/˘/˘
Our own life takes a meaning guessed	8	/····/˘·
From the torn dulse's.	5	·····
The draft and set of deep sea-tides	8	········
Swirling and flowing,	5	/˘·/˘
Bears every filmy flake that rides,	8	·/˘/˘···
Grandly unknowing.	5	/˘˘/˘
The sunlight listens; thin and fine	8	·/·/˘···
The crickets whistle;	5	·/˘/˘
And floating midges fill the shine	8	·/˘/˘···
Like a seeding thistle.	6	··/˘/˘
The hawkbit flies his golden flag	8	·/˘··/˘·
From rocky pasture,	5	·/˘/˘
Bidding his legions never lag	8	/˘·/˘/˘·
Through morning's vasture.	5	·/˘··
Soon we shall see the red vines ramp	8	········
Through forest borders,	5	·/˘/˘
And Indian summer breaking camp	8	·/˘/˘/˘·
To silent orders.	5	·/˘/˘
The glossy chestnuts swell and burst	8	·/˘/˘···
Their prickly houses	5	·/˘/˘
Agog at news which reached them first	8	˘/······
In sap's carouses.	5	··˘/˘
The long noons turn the ribstons red,	8	········
The pippins yellow;	5	·/˘/˘
The wild duck from his reedy bed	8	·····/˘·
Summons his fellow.	5	/˘·/˘
The robins keep the underbrush	8	·/˘··/˘·
Songless and wary,	5	/˘·/˘
As though they feared some frostier hush	8	········
Might bid them tarry;	5	···/˘
Perhaps in the great North they heard	8	˘/······
Of silence falling	5	·/˘/˘
Upon the world without a word,	8	········
White and appalling.	5	··˘/˘
The ash-tree and the lady-fern,	8	·····/˘·
In russet frondage,	5	·/˘··
Proclaim 'tis time for our return	8	˘/···/˘/
To vagabondage.	4	·/˘˘
All summer idle have we kept;	8	·/˘/˘···
But on a morning,	5	···/˘
Where the blue hazy mountains slept,	8	···/˘/˘·
A scarlet warning	5	·/˘/˘
Disturbs our day-dream with a start;	8	˘//·····
A leaf turns over;	5	·····
And every earthling is at heart	8	·/˘/˘···
Once more a rover.	5	···/˘
All winter we shall toil and plod,	8	·/˘·····
Eating and drinking;	5	/˘·/˘
But now's the little time when God	8	···/˘···
Sets folk to thinking.	5	···/˘
"Consider," says the quiet sun,	8	˘/˘··/˘·
"How far I wander;	5	···/˘
Yet when had I not time on one	8	········
More flower to squander?"	6	·/˘·/˘
"Consider," says the restless tide,	8	˘/˘··/˘·
"My endless labor;	5	·/˘/˘
Yet when was I content beside	8	····˘/˘/
My nearest neighbor?"	5	·/˘/˘
So wander-lust to wander-lure,	8	·/˘··/˘·
As seed to season,	5	···/˘
Must rise and wend, possessed and sure	8	····˘/··
In sweet unreason.	5	··˘/˘
For doorstone and repose are good,	8	·/˘·˘/··
And kind is duty;	5	···/˘
But joy is in the solitude	8	·····/˘·
With shy-heart beauty.	5	···/˘
And Truth is one whose ways are meek	8	········
Beyond foretelling;	5	··˘/˘
And far his journey who would seek	8	···/˘···
Her lowly dwelling.	5	·/˘/˘
She leads him by a thousand heights,	8	·····/˘·
Lonelily faring,	6	····/˘
With sunrise and with eagle flights	8	·/···/˘·
To mate his daring.	5	···/˘
For her he fronts a vaster fog	8	········
Than Leif of yore did,	5	·····
Voyaging for continents no log	8	/˘·/˘˘··
Has yet recorded.	5	··˘/˘
He travels by a polar star,	8	·/˘··/˘·
Now bright, now hidden,	5	···/˘
For a free land, though rest be far	8	········
And roads forbidden,	5	··˘/˘
Till on a day with sweet coarse bread	8	········
And wine she stays him,	5	·····
Then in a cool and narrow bed	8	·····/˘·
To slumber lays him.	5	·/˘··
So we are hers. And, fellows mine	8	·····/˘·
Of fin and feather,	5	···/˘
By shady wood and shadowy brine,	8	·/˘··/˘·
When comes the weather	5	···/˘
For migrants to be moving on,	8	·/˘··/˘·
By lost indenture	5	··˘/˘
You flock and gather and are gone:	8	···/˘···
The old adventure!	5	··˘/˘
I too have my unwritten date,	8	····˘/˘·
My gypsy presage;	5	·/˘/˘
And on the brink of fall I wait	8	········
The darkling message.	5	·/˘/˘
The sign, from prying eyes concealed,	8	···/˘·˘/
Is yet how flagrant!	5	···/˘
Here's ragged-robin in the field,	8	·/˘/˘···
A simple vagrant.	5	·/˘/˘

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.

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