Last Songs from Vagabondia

by Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey

 

THE TIME AND THE PLACE

 
"NEVER the time and the place
And the loved one all together!"
Ah, Browning, that does to tell!
But I have an eagle feather
Hid in my waistcoat too.
5

Yes, once in the wild June weather,
In God’s own North befell
The joy not time shall undo
Nor the storm of years efface.
Ah, master Browning, you hear?
10
If ever the time and the place
With aught of thy mood concur,
Far off in my golden year,
The solstice of my prime,
Youth done, age not begun,
15
The moment that soul is ripe
For the little touch of rhyme,
Then hearken! If there but stir
One breath of the Spirit of earth
Through me his frail reed-pipe,
20
(As the hermit-thrush
Rehearses the scene when the joy of the world had birth,
So sure, so fine,
Disturbing the hush,)
Your shall hearken, and hear
25
Take rapture and sense and form in one perfect line
A golden lyric of Her!