Look-
ing forward from this hallowed ground, we can only behold a
future for our poetry, sunnier than its past.
ing forward from this hallowed ground, we can only behold a
future for our poetry, sunnier than its past.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v25 - Tas to Tur
elsewhere
Breathes amid fields and forests hard of heart,-
Bereft of joy I stray from crowds apart
In this dark vale, 'mid grief and ire's foul air,
Where there is nothing left of bright or fair.
Since Love has gone a rustic to the plow,
Or feeds his flocks, or in the summer now
Handles the rake, now plies the scythe with care.
Happy the mead and valley, hill and wood,
Where man and beast, and almost tree and stone,
Seem by her look with sense and joy endued!
What is not changed on which her eyes e'er shone?
The country courteous grows, the city rude,
Even from her presence or her loss alone.
--
Translation of Richard Henry Wilde.
*A play on the word "L'Aura» (the breeze) and the name Laura.
## p. 14518 (#80) ###########################################
14518
BAYARD TAYLOR
BAYARD TAYLOR
(1825-1878)
BY ALBERT H. SMYTH
B
AYARD TAYLOR was born in Kennett Square, Chester County,
Pennsylvania, January 11th, 1825. The story of his life is
the history of a struggle. His career began in humble cir-
cumstances, and ended in splendor. The love of letters was awak-
ened in him in childhood; he yielded passionate homage to the great
names of literature. When he was seven years old he grieved over
the death of Goethe and of Scott, and in
the same year (1832) composed his first
poems. His early surroundings tended to
repress his enthusiasms. He inherited two
strains of blood, German and English. By
the first he was related to the Lancaster
Mennonites who had migrated from East
Switzerland, and who spoke the Pennsylva-
nia Dutch dialect; by the other he was kin
to the seventeenth-century Mendenhall fam-
ily of Wiltshire, and the Cheshire Taylors.
He was raised in a Quaker atmosphere
which suppressed imagination and emotion.
When he was nineteen years old, he said he
felt as if he were sitting in an exhausted
receiver, while the air which should nourish his spiritual life could
only be found in distant lands. The courage, restless curiosity, and
push of the country lad found a way to finer air. He published
in 1844 a little volume of poems called 'Ximena, or the Battle of
the Sierra Morena. ' With the small profits of this literary venture,
and a few dollars advanced by Philadelphia editors, Bayard Taylor,
in company with two friends, left New York July 1st, 1844, bound
for Liverpool. For two years he traveled on foot through Europe,
eagerly studying the memorials of art and history, enduring every
hardship and privation, often penniless and hungry, never without
hope and courage, and always welcoming returning joy.
"Born in the New World, ripened in the old," Berthold Auerbach
Isaid of him. This first tramp trip abroad was symbolic of his whole
## p. 14519 (#81) ###########################################
BAYARD TAYLOR
14519
life. It showed splendid energy, and acute sensibility; and it was
really Bayard Taylor's university education, supplying the deficien-
cies of his simple life and country schooling. Although a safe and
at times brilliant literary critic, and although his wide reading quali-
fied him for the professorship of German literature at Cornell Univer-
sity, he was not a scholar. He was never sure of his Latin, and
Greek he did not begin to study until he was fifty. His education
came largely from travel; he picked his knowledge from the living
bush.
It was as a traveler that he was most widely known, though it
was the reputation that he least cared for. . His great success as
a public lecturer was largely due to his fame as a traveler. He
published eleven books of travel, beginning with 'Views Afoot, or
Europe Seen with Knapsack and Staff' (1846),—a work so popular
that it went through twenty editions in ten years.
N. P. Willis introduced Bayard Taylor to the literary society of
New York; and before the end of January 1848, Horace Greeley
offered him a situation on the Tribune. In one capacity or another
he continued to serve the Tribune until his death; and he was one
of the most eagerly industrious and prolific writers on the staff. For
the Tribune he visited California in 1849; and his letters from the
gold fields were republished in 'Eldorado, or Adventures in the Path
of Empire. '
Two years of distant travel, in Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, pro-
ceeding by the White Nile to the country of the Shillooks, gave him
the materials for 'A Journey to Central Africa,' 'The Lands of the
Saracen,' and 'A Visit to India, China, and Japan. '
Subsequent journeys resulted in Northern Travel,' Travels in
Greece and Russia,' 'At Home and Abroad,' 'Colorado: a Summer
Trip,' and 'Byways of Europe. ' The chief merit of Taylor's books
of travel is reporterial. They tell of adventure, of courage and per-
sistence. They make no pretense to antiquarian knowledge, they at-
tempt no theory or speculation; but simply and vividly they tell the
visible aspects of the countries they describe. Architecture, scenery,
and habits of life, stand in clear outline, and justify the criticism
that has named Bayard Taylor "the best American reporter of scenes
and incidents. "
<
Bayard Taylor's literary triumphs were not made in English lit-
erature alone. His inclinations were toward German life and let-
ters. Goethe was his chief literary passion. Like, him he yearned
after "the unshackled range of all experience. " The calm self-poise
and symmetrical culture of Goethe fascinated him. He craved intel-
lectual novelty, and continually wheeled into new orbits; seeking, as
he wrote to E. C. Stedman, "the establishing of my own Entelecheia
## p. 14520 (#82) ###########################################
14520
BAYARD TAYLOR
the making of all that is possible out of such powers as I may have,
without violently forcing or distorting them. " Astonishing versatility
is the chief note of his life and of his inclusive literary career. He
was famous as a traveler, and successful as a diplomatist in Russia
and in Germany. To his eleven volumes of travels he added four
novels, several short stories, a history of Germany, two volumes of
critical essays and studies in German and English literature, a famous
translation of 'Faust,' and thirteen volumes of poems comprising
almost every variety of verses,— odes, idyls, ballads, lyrics, pastorals,
dramatic romances, and lyrical dramas.
For seven years he worked upon his translation of Faust,'
which he completed in 1870. The immense difficulties of the poem
he attacked with unresting energy, and with a singularly intimate
knowledge of the German language. He undertook to render the
poem in the original metres, and in this respect succeeded beyond
all other translators. The dedication 'An Goethe' which Taylor pub-
lished in his translation is a masterpiece of German verse.
It can
stand side by side with Goethe's own dedication without paling a syl-
lable. Taylor was completely saturated with German literature; and
in his lectures upon Lessing, Klopstock, Schiller, and Goethe, his
illustrative quotations were the genuine droppings from the comb.
He was widely read and appreciated in Germany. When he delivered
in German, at Weimar, his lecture upon American literature, the
whole court was present; and among his auditors were the grand-
children of Carl August, Goethe, Schiller, Herder, and Wieland. When
he was minister to Berlin, every facility was given him to pursue
those studies in the lives of Goethe and Schiller which would have
resulted in the crowning work of his life, but which were destined
never to be completed.
It was partly with the hope of working a lucrative literary vein
that would take the place of the repugnant lecturing trade, that he
turned his attention to the novel. 'Hannah Thurston' and 'The
Story of Kennett' are attempts to interpret the life of his native
region in Pennsylvania. The beautiful pastoral landscapes of the
Chester valley, and the homely life of its fertile farms, he dwells
affectionately upon; but the curious crotchets and fads of the Quaker
community in which he grew up are ridiculed and rebuked. Spirit-
ualism, vegetarianism, teetotalism, and all the troop of unreasoning
"isms" of the hour, enter into the plot of Hannah Thurston. ' 'John
Godfrey's Fortunes' is constructed out of the author's literary and
social experiences in New York about 1850, and is to a considerable
extent autobiographical.
Bayard Taylor's darling ambition was to be remembered as a
poet. However he might experiment in other fields of literature, and
## p. 14521 (#83) ###########################################
BAYARD TAYLOR
14521
however enviable the distinctions he might win in statecraft and
in scholarship, nothing could reconcile him to the slightest sense of
failure in his poetic endeavor. He had real lyric genius, as is abund-
antly shown in the 'Poems of the Orient': 'The Bedouin Song'-
paralleled only in Shelley-and The Song of the Camp' are two
lyrics that will last as long as anything in American poetry. The
sadness of Bayard Taylor's life was its frustrated purpose. It was a
full and happy life as a whole, for his work was a joy to him, and
he dwelt always in an atmosphere of generous and noble thoughts;
yet the reward often seemed inadequate to the high endeavor. He
had a generous plan of life, he was ambitious for himself and family.
He acquired a large estate, and built an expensive house, - Cedar-
croft, at Kennett Square, and lived an open, generous, hospitable
life. Involved in heavy domestic expenses, he never knew the value
of freedom. His life became a struggle for the means to live, and he
had neither time nor opportunity to refine his exquisite sense of lyric
harmony.
He planned great poems like 'Prince Deukalion' and 'The Masque
of the Gods,' which insensibly convey the impression of vast move-
ments in human affairs, of the strange stirrings of nations and races,
but which are distinctly poems of the intellect. He had splendid rhet-
oric, and his verse was sonorous, resonant, and at times. as in the
'National Ode'-stately. Had he devoted himself to song, he would
have been a noble poet; but he had a dozen kinds of talent, and he
had restless curiosity and ambition. His health failed under the
stress of labor and the strain of care. In 1878 he was appointed
minister to Germany. At last success seemed to be attained, and the
long struggle was over. But his vital powers were overtaxed. He
took the ovations of his friends with an abandon which left him
physically exhausted long before he sailed. He died in Berlin, Decem-
ber 19th, 1878.
Allesse. Amy to
―
## p. 14522 (#84) ###########################################
14522
BAYARD TAYLOR
FITZ-GREENE HALLECK
Address at the dedication of the Halleck Monument at Guilford, Connecticut,
July 8th, 1869. From 'Critical Essays and Literary Notes. ' Copyright
1880, by G. P. Putnam's Sons.
E HAVE been eighty years an organized nation, ninety-three
years an independent people, more than two hundred
years an American race; and to-day, for the first time
in our history, we meet to dedicate publicly, with appropriate
honors, a monument to an American poet. The occasion is thus
lifted above the circle of personal memories which inspired it,
and takes its place as the beginning of a new epoch in the story
of our culture. It carries our thoughts back of the commence-
ment of this individual life, into the elements from which our
literature grew; and forward, far beyond the closing of the tomb
before us, into the possible growth and glory of the future.
The rhythmical expression of emotion, or passion, or thought,
is a need of the human race coeval with speech, universal as
religion, the prophetic forerunner as well as the last-begotten off-
spring of civilization. Poetry belongs equally to the impressible
childhood of a people and to the refined ease of their maturity.
It is both the instinctive effort of nature and the loftiest ideal
of art; receding to farther and farther spheres of spiritual beauty
as men rise to the capacity for its enjoyment. But our race was
transferred, half-grown, from the songs of its early ages and the
inspiring associations of its past, and set here face to face with
stern tasks which left no space for the lighter play of the mind.
The early generations of English bards gradually become for-
eign to us; for their songs, however sweet, were not those of
our home. We profess to claim an equal share in Chaucer
and Spenser and Shakespeare, but it is a hollow pretense. They
belong to our language, but we cannot truly feel that they
belong to us as a people. The destiny that placed us on this
soil robbed us of the magic of tradition, the wealth of romance,
the suggestions of history, the sentiment of inherited homes and
customs, and left us, shorn of our lisping childhood, to create a
poetic literature for ourselves.
It is not singular, therefore, that this continent should have
waited long for its first-born poet. The intellect, the energy of
character, the moral force,-even the occasional taste and refine-
ment,— which were shipped hither from the older shores, found
## p. 14523 (#85) ###########################################
BAYARD TAYLOR
14523
the hard work of history already portioned out for them; and the
Muses discovered no nook of guarded leisure, no haunt of sweet
contemplation, which might tempt them to settle among us.
Labor may be prayer, but it is not poetry. Liberty of conscience
and worship, practical democracy, the union of civil order and
personal independence, are ideas which may warm the hearts and
brains of men; but the soil in which they strike root is too full
of fresh, unsoftened forces to produce the delicate wine of song.
The highest product of ripened intellect cannot be expected in
the nonage of a nation. The poetry of our colonial and revolu-
tionary periods is mostly a spiritless imitation of inferior models
in the parent country. If here and there some timid, uncertain
voice seems to guess the true language, we only hear it once or
twice; like those colonized nightingales which for one brief sum-
mer gave their new song to the Virginian moonlights, and then
disappeared. These early fragments of our poetry are chanted in
the midst of such profound silence and loneliness that they sound
spectrally to our ears. Philip Freneau is almost as much a shade
to us as are his own hunter and deer.
In the same year in which the Constitution of the United
States was completed and adopted, the first poet was born,-
Richard Henry Dana. Less than three years after him Fitz-
Greene Halleck came into the world, the lyrical genius follow-
ing the grave and contemplative Muse of his elder brother. In
Halleck, therefore, we mourn our first loss out of the first gener-
ation of American bards; and a deeper significance is thus given
to the personal honors which we lovingly pay to his memory.
Let us be glad, not only that these honors have been so nobly
deserved, but also that we find in him a fitting representative of
his age!
Let us forget our sorrow for the true man, the stead-
fast friend, and rejoice that the earliest child of song whom we
return to the soil that bore him for us, was the brave, bright,
and beautiful growth of a healthy, masculine race! No morbid
impatience with the restrictions of life, no fruitless lament over
an unattainable ideal, no inherited gloom of temperament, such
as finds delight in what it chooses to call despair, ever muffled
the clear notes of his verse, or touched the sunny cheerfulness
of his history. The cries and protests, the utterances of "world-
pain," with which so many of his contemporaries in Europe filled
the world, awoke no echo in his sound and sturdy nature. His
life offers no enigmas for our solution. No romantic mystery
-
## p. 14524 (#86) ###########################################
14524
BAYARD TAYLOR
floats around his name, to win for him the interest of a shallow
sentimentalism. Clear, frank, simple, and consistent, his song and
his life were woven into one smooth and even thread. We would
willingly pardon in him some expression of dissatisfaction with a
worldly fate which in certain respects seemed inadequate to his
genius; but we find that he never uttered it. The basis of his
nature was a knightly bravery, of such firm and enduring temper
that it kept from him even the ordinary sensitiveness of the
poetic character. From the time of his studies as a boy, in the
propitious kitchen which heard his first callow numbers, to the last
days of a life which had seen no liberal popular recognition of
his deserts, he accepted his fortune with the perfect dignity of a
man who cannot stoop to discontent. During his later visits to
New York, the simplest, the most unobtrusive, yet the cheerful-
est man to be seen among the throngs of Broadway, was Fitz-
Greene Halleck. Yet with all his simplicity, his bearing was
strikingly gallant and fearless; the carriage of his head suggested
the wearing of a helmet. The genial frankness and grace of his
manner in his intercourse with men has suggested to others the
epithet "courtly"; but I prefer to call it manly, as the expres-
sion of a rarer and finer quality than is usually found in the
atmosphere of courts.
Halleck was loyal to himself as a man, and he was also loyal
to his art as a poet. His genius was essentially lyrical, and he
seems to have felt instinctively its natural limitations. He qui-
etly and gratefully accepted the fame which followed his best pro-
ductions, but he never courted public applause. Even the swift
popularity of the Croaker series could not seduce him to take
advantage of the tide, which then promised a speedy flood. At
periods in his history when anything from his pen would have
been welcomed by a class of readers whose growing taste found
so little sustenance at home, he remained silent because he felt
no immediate personal necessity of poetic utterance. The Ger-
man poet Uhland said to me: "I cannot now say whether I
shall write any more, because I only write when I feel the posi-
tive need; and this is independent of my will, or the wish of
others. " Such was also the law of Halleck's mind, and of the
mind of every poet who reveres his divine gift. God cannot
accept a mechanical prayer; and I do not compare sacred things
with profane when I say that a poem cannot be accepted which
does not compel its own inspired utterance. He is the true
## p. 14525 (#87) ###########################################
BAYARD TAYLOR
14525
priest of the human heart and the human soul who rhythmically
expresses the emotions and the aspirations of his own.
It has been said of Halleck as of Campbell, that "he was
afraid of the shadow which his own fame cast before him. " I
protest against the use of a clever epigrammatic sentence to
misinterpret the poetic nature to men. The inference is that
poets write merely for that popular recognition which is called
fame; and having attained a certain degree, fear to lose it by
later productions which may not prove so acceptable. A writer
influenced by such a consideration never deserved the name of
poet. It is an unworthy estimate of his character which thus
explains the honest and honorable silence of Fitz-Greene Halleck.
The quality of genius is not to be measured by its productive
activity. The brain which gave us 'Alnwick Castle,' 'Marco
Bozzaris,' 'Burns,' and 'Red Jacket,' was not exhausted; it was
certainly capable of other and equally admirable achievements:
but the fortunate visits of the Muse are not to be compelled by
the poet's will; and Halleck endured her absence without com-
plaint, as he had enjoyed her favors without ostentation. The
very fact that he wrote so little, proclaims the sincerity of his
genius, and harmonizes with the entire character of his life. It
was enough for him that he first let loose the Theban eagle in
our songless American air. He was glad and satisfied to know
that his lyrics have entered into and become a part of the
national life; that
"Sweet tears dim the eyes unshed,
And wild vows falter on the tongue,"
when his lines, keen and flexible as fire, burn in the ears of the
young who shall hereafter sing, and fight, and labor, and love, for
"God and their native land! "
It is not necessary that we should attempt to determine his
relative place among American poets. It is sufficient that he
has his assured place, and that his name is a permanent part of
our literary history. It is sufficient that he deserves every honor
which we
can render to his memory, not only as one of the
very first representatives of American song, but from his intrinsic
quality as a poet. Let us rather be thankful for every star
set in our heaven, than seek to ascertain how they differ from
one another in glory. If any critic would diminish the loving
enthusiasm of those whose lives have been brightened by the
## p. 14526 (#88) ###########################################
14526
BAYARD TAYLOR
poet's personal sunshine, let him remember that the sternest criti-
cism will set the lyrics of Halleck higher than their author's un-
ambitious estimate. They will in time fix their own just place
in our poetic annals. Halleck is still too near our orbit for the
computation of an exact parallax; but we may safely leave his
measure of fame to the decision of impartial Time. A poem
which bears within itself its own right to existence, will not die.
Its rhythm is freshly fed from the eternal pulses of beauty,
whence flows the sweetest life of the human race. Age cannot
quench its original fire, or repetition make dull its immortal
music. It forever haunts that purer atmosphere which overlies
the dust and smoke of our petty cares and our material interests
- often indeed calling to us like a distant clarion, to keep awake
the senses of intellectual delight which would else perish from
our lives. The poetic literature of a land is the finer and purer
ether above its material growth and the vicissitudes of its his-
tory. Where it was vacant and barren for us, except perchance
a feeble lark-note here and there, Dana, Halleck, and Bryant rose
together on steadier wings, and gave voices to the solitude: Dana
with a broad, grave undertone, like that of the sea; Bryant with
a sound as of the wind in summer woods, and the fall of waters
in mountain dells; and Halleck with strains blown from a sil-
ver trumpet, breathing manly fire and courage. Many voices
have followed them; the ether rings with new melodies, and yet
others come to lure all the aspirations of our hearts, and echo
all the yearnings of our separated destiny: but we shall not for-
get the forerunners who rose in advance of their welcome, and
created their own audience by their songs.
Thus it is that in dedicating a monument to Fitz-Greene Hal-
leck to-day, we symbolize the intellectual growth of the American.
people. They have at last taken that departure which repre-
sents the higher development of a nation,- the capacity to value
the genius which cannot work with material instruments; which
is unmoved by Atlantic Cables, Pacific Railroads, and any show
of marvelous statistical tables; which grandly dispenses with the
popular measures of success; which simply expresses itself, with-
out consciously working for the delight of others; yet which, once
recognized, stands thenceforth as a part of the glory of the whole
people. It is a token that we have relaxed the rough work of
two and a half centuries, and are beginning to enjoy that rest
and leisure out of which the grace and beauty of civilization
## p. 14527 (#89) ###########################################
BAYARD TAYLOR
14527
grow. The pillars of our political fabric have been slowly and
massively raised, like the drums of Doric columns; but they still
need the crowning capitals and the sculptured entablature. Law,
and Right, and Physical Development build well, but they are
cold, mathematical architects: the Poet and the Artist make
beautiful the temple. Our natural tendency, as a people, is to
worship positive material achievement in whatever form it is dis-
played; even the poet must be a partisan before the government
will recognize his existence. So much of our intellectual energy
has been led into the new paths which our national growth
has opened, so exacting are the demands upon working brains,
that taste and refinement of mind, and warm appreciation of the
creative spirit of beauty, are only beginning to bloom here and
there among us, like tender exotic flowers. "The light that never
was on sea or land" shines all around us, but few are the eyes
whose vision it clarifies. Yet the faculty is here, and the earnest
need. The delight in art, of which poetry is the highest mani-
festation, has ceased to be the privilege of a fortunate few, and
will soon become, let us hope, the common heritage of the peo-
ple. If any true song has heretofore been sung to unheeding
ears, let us behold, in this dedication, the sign that our reproach
is taken away,- that henceforth every new melody of the land
shall spread in still expanding vibrations, until all shall learn to
listen!
The life of the poet who sleeps here represents the long
period of transition between the appearance of American poetry
and the creation of an appreciative and sympathetic audience for
it. We must honor him all the more that in the beginning he
was content with the few who heard him; that the agitations of
national life through which he passed could not ruffle the clear
flow of his song; and that, with a serene equanimity of temper
which is the rarest American virtue, he saw, during his whole
life, wealth and personal distinction constantly passing into less.
deserving hands, without temptation and without envy. All pop-
ular superstitions concerning the misanthropy or the irritable
temper of genius were disproved in him: I have never known a
man so independent of the moods and passions of his generation.
We cannot regret that he should have been chosen to assist in
the hard pioneer work of our literature, because he seemed to be
so unconscious of its privations. Yet he and his co-mates have
walked a rough, and for the most part a lonely track, leaving a
## p. 14528 (#90) ###########################################
14528
BAYARD TAYLOR
smoother way broken for their followers. They have blazed their
trails through the wilderness, and carved their sounding names on
the silent mountain peaks; teaching the scenery of our homes a
language, and giving it a rarer and tenderer charm than even
the atmosphere of great historic deeds. Fitz-Greene Halleck has
set his seal upon the gray rock of Connecticut, on the heights
of Weehawken, on the fair valley of Wyoming, and the Field of
the Grounded Arms. He has done his manly share in forcing
this half-subdued nature in which we live, to accept a human
harmony, and cover its soulless beauty with the mantle of his
verse.
However our field of poetic literature may bloom, whatever
products of riper culture may rise to overshadow its present
growths, the memory of Halleck is perennially rooted at its
entrance. Recognizing the purity of his genius, the nobility of
his character, we gratefully and affectionately dedicate to him
this monument. There is no cypress in the wreath which we
lay upon his grave. We do not meet to chant a dirge over un-
fulfilled promises or an insufficient destiny. We have no willful
defiance of the world to excuse, no sensitive protest to justify.
Our hymn of consecration is cheerful, though solemn.
Look-
ing forward from this hallowed ground, we can only behold a
future for our poetry, sunnier than its past. We see the love of
beauty born from the servitude to use; the recognition of an
immortal ideal element gradually evolved from the strength of
natures which have conquered material forces; the growth of all
fine and gracious attributes of imagination and fancy, to warm
and sweeten and expand the stately coldness of intellect. We
dream of days when the highest and deepest utterances of rhyth-
mical thought shall be met with grateful welcome, not with dull
amazement or mean suspicion. We wait for voices which shall
no more say to the poet, "Stay here, at the level of our delight
in you! " but which shall say to him, "Higher, still higher!
though we may not reach you, yet in following we shall rise! "
And as our last prophetic hope, we look for that fortunate age
when the circle of sympathy, now so limited, shall be coextensive
with the nation, and when, even as the poet loves his land, his
land shall love her poet!
-
## p. 14529 (#91) ###########################################
BAYARD TAYLOR
14529
[The following poems of Bayard Taylor are all copyrighted, and are repub-
lished here by permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , publishers. ]
CHARMIAN
DAUGHTER of the sun,
O
Who gave the keys of passion unto thee?
Who taught the powerful sorcery
Wherein my soul, too willing to be won,
Still feebly struggles to be free.
But more than half undone?
Within the mirror of thine eyes,
Full of the sleep of warm Egyptian skies,-
The sleep of lightning, bound in airy spell,
And deadlier, because invisible,-
I see the reflex of a feeling
Which was not till I looked on thee;
A power, involved in mystery,
That shrinks, affrighted, from its own revealing.
Thou sitt'st in stately indolence,
Too calm to feel a breath of passion start
The listless fibres of thy sense,
The fiery slumber of thy heart.
Thine eyes are wells of darkness, by the veil
Of languid lids half-sealed; the pale
And bloodless olive of thy face,
And the full, silent lips that wear
A ripe serenity of grace,
Are dark beneath the shadow of thy hair.
Not from the brow of templed Athor beams
Such tropic warmth along the path of dreams;
Not from the lips of hornèd Isis flows
Such sweetness of repose!
For thou art Passion's self, a goddess too,
And aught but worship never knew;
And thus thy glances, calm and sure,
Look for accustomed homage, and betray
No effort to assert thy sway:
Thou deem'st my fealty secure.
XXV-909
O Sorceress! those looks unseal
The undisturbèd mysteries that press
Too deep in nature for the heart to feel
Their terror and their loveliness.
## p. 14530 (#92) ###########################################
14530
BAYARD TAYLOR
Thine eyes are torches that illume
On secret shrines their unforeboded fires,
And fill the vaults of silence and of gloom
With the unresisting life of new desires.
I follow where their arrowy ray
Pierces the veil I would not tear away,
And with a dread, delicious awe behold
Another gate of life unfold,
Like the rapt neophyte who sees
Some march of grand Osirian mysteries.
The startled chambers I explore,
And every entrance open lies,
Forced by the magic thrill that runs before
Thy slowly lifted eyes.
I tremble to the centre of my being
Thus to confess the spirit's poise o'erthrown,
And all its guiding virtues blown
Like leaves before the whirlwind's fury fleeing.
But see! one memory rises in my soul,
And beaming steadily and clear,
Scatters the lurid thunder-clouds that roll
Through Passion's sultry atmosphere.
An alchemy more potent borrow
For thy dark eyes, enticing Sorceress!
For on the casket of a sacred Sorrow
Their shafts fall powerless.
Nay, frown not, Athor, from thy mystic shrine:
Strong Goddess of Desire, I will not be
One of the myriad slaves thou callest thine,
To cast my manhood's crown of royalty
Before thy dangerous beauty: I am free!
ARIEL IN THE CLOVEN PINE
N°
ow the frosty stars are gone:
I have watched them one by one,
Fading on the shores of Dawn.
Round and full the glorious sun
Walks with level step the spray,
Through his vestibule of Day,
While the wolves that late did howl
Slink to dens and coverts foul,
Guarded by the demon owl,
## p. 14531 (#93) ###########################################
BAYARD TAYLOR
14531
Who, last night, with mocking croon,
Wheeled athwart the chilly moon,
And with eyes that blankly glared
On my direful torment stared.
The lark is flickering in the light;
Still the nightingale doth sing:-
All the isle, alive with spring,
Lies, a jewel of delight,
On the blue sea's heaving breast:
Not a breath from out the west,
But some balmy smell doth bring
From the sprouting myrtle buds,
Or from meadowy vales that lie
Like a green inverted sky,
Which the yellow cowslip stars,
And the bloomy almond woods,
Cloud-like, cross with roseate bars.
All is life that I can spy,
To the farthest sea and sky,
And my own the only pain
Within this ring of Tyrrhene main.
In the gnarled and cloven pine
Where that hell-born hag did chain me,
All this orb of cloudless shine,
All this youth in Nature's veins
Tingling with the season's wine,
With a sharper torment pain me.
Pansies in soft April rains
Fill their stalks with honeyed sap
Drawn from Earth's prolific lap;
But the sluggish blood she brings
To the tough pine's hundred rings,
Closer locks their cruel hold,
Closer draws the scaly bark
Round the crevice, damp and cold,
Where my useless wings I fold,-
Sealing me in iron dark.
By this coarse and alien state
Is my dainty ess
essence wronged;
Finer senses that belonged
To my freedom, chafe at Fate,
Till the happier elves I hate,
## p. 14532 (#94) ###########################################
14532
BAYARD TAYLOR
Who in moonlight dances turn
Underneath the palmy fern,
Or in light and twinkling bands.
Follow on with linkèd hands
To the ocean's yellow sands.
Primrose-eyes each morning ope
In their cool deep beds of grass;
Violets make the airs that pass
Telltales of their fragrant slope.
I can see them where they spring,
Never brushed by fairy wing.
All those corners I can spy
In the island's solitude,
Where the dew is never dry,
Nor the miser bees intrude.
Cups of rarest hue are there,
Full of perfumed wine undrained,—
Mushroom banquets, ne'er profaned,
Canopied by maiden-hair.
Pearls I see upon the sands,
Never touched by other hands;
And the rainbow bubbles shine
On the ridged and frothy brine,
Tenantless of voyager
Till they burst in vacant air.
Oh, the songs that sung might be,
And the mazy dances woven,
Had that witch ne'er crossed the sea
And the pine been never cloven!
Many years my direst pain
Has made the wave-rocked isle complain.
Winds that from the Cyclades
Came to blow in wanton riot
Round its shore's enchanted quiet,
Bore my wailings on the seas;
Sorrowing birds in Autumn went
Through the world with my lament.
Still the bitter fate is mine,
All delight unshared to see,
Smarting in the cloven pine,
While I wait the tardy axe
Which perchance shall set me free
From the damned witch Sycorax.
## p. 14533 (#95) ###########################################
BAYARD TAYLOR
14533
BEDOUIN SONG
FRO
ROM the Desert I come to thee
On a stallion shod with fire;
And the winds are left behind
In the speed of my desire.
Under thy window I stand,
And the midnight hears my cry:
I love thee, I love but thee,
With a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment
Book unfold!
Look from thy window and see
My passion and my pain;
I lie on the sands below,
And I faint in thy disdain.
Let the night-winds touch thy brow
With the heat of my burning sigh,
And melt thee to hear the vow
Of a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment
Book unfold!
My steps are nightly driven
By the fever in my breast,
To hear from thy lattice breathed
The word that shall give me rest.
Open the door of thy heart,
And open thy chamber door,
And my kisses shall teach thy lips
The love that shall fade no more
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment
Book unfold!
## p. 14534 (#96) ###########################################
14534
BAYARD TAYLOR
HYLAS
TORM-WEARIED Argo slept upon the water.
No cloud was seen; on blue and craggy Ida
The hot noon lay, and on the plain's enamel;
Cool, in his bed, alone, the swift Scamander.
STO
་ Why should I haste? " said young and rosy Hylas:
"The seas were rough, and long the way from Colchis.
Beneath the snow-white awning slumbers Jason,
Pillowed upon his tame Thessalian panther;
The shields are piled, the listless oars suspended
On the black thwarts, and all the hairy bondsmen
Doze on the benches. They may wait for water,
Till I have bathed in mountain-born Scamander. "
So said, unfilleting his purple chlamys,
And putting down his urn, he stood a moment,
Breathing the faint, warm odor of the blossoms
That spangled thick the lovely Dardan meadows.
Then stooping lightly, loosened he his buskins,
And felt with shrinking feet the crispy verdure;-
Naked save one light robe that from his shoulder
Hung to his knee, the youthful flush revealing
Of warm white limbs, half-nerved with coming manhood.
Yet fair and smooth with tenderness of beauty.
Now to the river's sandy marge advancing,
He dropped the robe, and raised his head exulting
In the clear sunshine, that with beam embracing
Held him against Apollo's glowing bosom.
For sacred to Latona's son is Beauty,
Sacred is Youth, the joy of youthful feeling.
A joy indeed, a living joy, was Hylas;
Whence Jove-begotten Hêraclês, the mighty,
To men though terrible, to him was gentle,-
Smoothing his rugged nature into laughter
When the boy stole his club, or from his shoulders
Dragged the huge paws of the Nemean lion.
The thick brown locks, tossed backward from his forehead.
Fell soft about his temples; manhood's blossom
Not yet had sprouted on his chin, but freshly
Curved the fair cheek, and full the red lips, parting,
Like a loose bow, that just has launched its arrow.
His large blue eyes, with joy dilate and beamy,
Were clear as the unshadowed Grecian heaven;
Dewy and sleek his dimpled shoulders rounded
## p. 14535 (#97) ###########################################
BAYARD TAYLOR
14535
To the white arms and whiter breast between them.
Downward, the supple lines had less of softness:
His back was like a god's; his loins were molded
As if some pulse of power began to waken;
The springy fullness of his thighs, outswerving,
Sloped to his knee, and lightly dropping downward,
Drew the curved lines that breathe, in rest, of motion.
He saw his glorious limbs reversely mirrored
In the still wave, and stretched his foot to press it
On the smooth sole that answered at the surface:
Alas! the shape dissolved in glimmering fragments.
Then, timidly at first, he dipped; and catching
Quick breath, with tingling shudder, as the waters
Swirled round his thighs; and deeper, slowly deeper,
Till on his breast the River's cheek was pillowed;
And deeper still, till every shoreward ripple
Talked in his ear, and like a cygnet's bosom
His white round shoulder shed the dripping crystal.
There, as he floated with a rapturous motion,
The lucid coolness folding close around him,
The lily-cradling ripples murmured, "Hylas! "
He shook from off his ears the hyacinthine
Curls that had lain unwet upon the water,
And still the ripples murmured, "Hylas! Hylas! "
He thought: "The voices are but ear-born music.
Pan dwells not here, and Echo still is calling
From some high cliff that tops a Thracian valley ·
So long mine ears, on tumbling Hellespontus,
Have heard the sea waves hammer Argo's forehead,
That I misdeem the fluting of this current
For some lost nymph-" Again the murmur, "Hylas! "
And with the sound a cold smooth arm around him
Slid like a wave, and down the clear green darkness
Glimmered on either side a shining bosom, —
Glimmered, uprising slow; and ever closer
Wound the cold arms, till, climbing to his shoulders,
Their cheeks lay nestled, while the purple tangles
Their loose hair made, in silken mesh enwound him.
Their eyes of clear pale emerald then uplifting,
They kissed his neck with lips of humid coral,
And once again there came a murmur, "Hylas!
Oh, come with us! Oh, follow where we wander
Deep down beneath the green, translucent ceiling,-
Where on the sandy bed of old Scamander
## p. 14536 (#98) ###########################################
14536
BAYARD TAYLOR
With cool white buds we braid our purple tresses,
Lulled by the bubbling waves around us stealing!
Thou fair Greek boy, oh, come with us! Oh, follow
Where thou no more shalt hear Propontis riot,
But by our arms be lapped in endless quiet,
Within the glimmering caves of Ocean hollow!
We have no love; alone, of all the Immortals,
We have no love. Oh, love us, we who press thee
With faithful arms, though cold,-whose lips caress thee,-
Who hold thy beauty prisoned! Love us, Hylas! ”
The boy grew chill to feel their twining pressure
Lock round his limbs, and bear him vainly striving,
Down from the noonday brightness. "Leave me, Naiads!
Leave me! " he cried: "the day to me dearer
Than all your caves deep-sphered in Ocean's quiet.
I am but mortal, seek but mortal pleasure;
I would not change this flexile, warm existence,
Though swept by storms, and shocked by Jove's dread thunder,
To be a king beneath the dark-green waters. "
Still moaned the human lips, between their kisses,
"We have no love. Oh, love us, we who love thee! "
And came in answer, thus, the words of Hylas: —
My love is mortal. For the Argive maidens
I keep the kisses which your lips would ravish.
Unlock your cold white arms; take from my shoulder
The tangled swell of your bewildering tresses.
Let me return: the wind comes down from Ida,
And soon the galley, stirring from her slumber,
Will fret to ride where Pelion's twilight shadow
Falls o'er the towers of Jason's sea-girt city.
I am not yours: I cannot braid the lilies
In your wet hair, nor on your argent bosoms
Close my drowsed eyes to hear your rippling voices.
Hateful to me your sweet, cold, crystal being,—
Your world of watery quiet. Help, Apollo!
For I am thine: thy fire, thy beam, thy music,
Dance in my heart and flood my sense with rapture!
The joy, the warmth and passion now awaken,
Promised by thee, but erewhile calmly sleeping.
Oh, leave me, Naiads! loose your chill embraces,
Or I shall die, for mortal maidens pining. "
But still with unrelenting arms they bound him,
And still, accordant, flowed their watery voices:-
"We have thee now,- - we hold thy beauty prisoned;
Oh, come with us beneath the emerald waters!
## p. 14537 (#99) ###########################################
BAYARD TAYLOR
14537
We have no love: we have thee, rosy Hylas.
Oh, love us, who shall nevermore release thee;
Love us, whose milky arms will be thy cradle
Far down on the untroubled sands of ocean,
Where now we bear thee, clasped in our embraces. "
And slowly, slowly sank the amorous Naiads:
The boy's blue eyes, upturned, looked through the water,
Pleading for help; but Heaven's immortal Archer
Was swathed in cloud. The ripples hid his forehead,
And last, the thick bright curls a moment floated,
So warm and silky that the stream upbore them,
Closing reluctant, as he sank forever.
The sunset died behind the crags of Imbros.
Argo was tugging at her chain; for freshly
Flew the swift breeze, and leaped the restless billows.
The voice of Jason roused the dozing sailors,
And up the mast was heaved the snowy canvas.
But mighty Hêraclês, the Jove-begotten,
Unmindful stood beside the cool Scamander,
Leaning upon his club. A purple chlamys
Tossed o'er an urn was all that lay before him:
And when he called, expectant, "Hylas! Hylas! "
The empty echoes made him answer, "Hylas! "
THE SONG OF THE CAMP
IVE us a song! " the soldiers cried,
The outer trenches guarding,
When the heated guns of the camps allied
Grew weary of bombarding.
་
"G"
The dark Redan, in silent scoff,
Lay, grim and threatening, under;
And the tawny mound of the Malakoff
No longer belched its thunder.
There was a pause. A guardsman said,
"We storm the forts to-morrow:
Sing while we may,- another day
Will bring enough of sorrow. "
They lay along the battery's side,
Below the smoking cannon:
Brave hearts, from Severn and from Clyde
And from the banks of Shannon.
## p. 14538 (#100) ##########################################
14538
BAYARD TAYLOR
They sang of love, and not of fame;
Forgot was Britain's glory:
Each heart recalled a different name,
But all sang 'Annie Laurie. '
Voice after voice caught up the song,
Until its tender passion
Rose like an anthem, rich and strong,—
Their battle-eve confession.
Dear girl, her name he dared not speak;
But as the song grew louder,
Something upon the soldier's cheek
Washed off the stains of powder.
Beyond the darkening ocean burned
The bloody sunset's embers,
While the Crimean valleys learned
How English love remembers.
And once again a fire of hell
Rained on the Russian quarters,
With scream of shot, and burst of shell,
And bellowing of the mortars!
And Irish Nora's eyes are dim
For a singer, dumb and gory;
And English Mary mourns for him
Who sang of Annie Laurie.
Sleep, soldiers! still in honored rest
Your truth and valor wearing:
The bravest are the tenderest,—
The loving are the daring.
## p. 14539 (#101) ##########################################
14539
SIR HENRY TAYLOR
(1800-1886)
HE modern English drama of literary significance is too scant
to make it easy to overlook so sterling a performance as
Sir Henry Taylor's Philip Van Artevelde. ' Taylor was a
poet by deliberation and culture rather than by creative neces-
sity. But he devoted himself with a calm singleness of purpose to
literature for a long term of years; and his work was always self-
respecting, careful, and artistically acceptable. He did his share in
lending dignity to letters. His career was fortunate in allowing him
to exercise his poetic talent in quiet ease; and the solid quality and
considerable extent of his literary endeavor are to show for it. Of
course his vogue is not now what it once was. Professor Saintsbury
has pointed out that whereas he was much quoted between 1835 and
1865, he has been little quoted by the generation coming between
1865 and 1895. But this is only the common fate of all but the
greatest. Philip Van Artevelde,' Taylor's masterpiece, will remain
one of the most notable achievements in the English historical drama
of the first half of the nineteenth century. It may be added that in
the lyric snatches imbedded in his plays, he sometimes strikes a rare
note, one that sends the reader ck to Elizabethan days. These
perfect songs are few in number, but sufficient to stamp their maker
as a true poet in his degree.
Henry Taylor was born at Bishop Middleham, Durham, England,
on October 18th, 1800. He came of a family of small land-owners.
He entered the navy as a lad, and was a midshipman for some
months. But this life he did not take to; and after four years in
the storekeeper's department, he found his true place in entering
the Colonial Office. He went in as a young man of twenty-four; he
remained well-nigh a half-century, became an important figure, and
acquired property. Taylor exercised much influence in his relation
to government: a fact indicated by the offer of Under-Secretaryship of
State in 1847, which he declined, and by his being knighted in 1869.
His employment left him the leisure necessary to carry on his liter-
ary work tranquilly, as an avocation. Dramatic writing constitutes
the bulk and the best of his efforts. He began when twenty-seven
with the play 'Isaac Comnenus' (1827), which was not well received.
But seven years later, Philip Van Artevelde' won great success;
TOK
## p. 14540 (#102) ##########################################
14540
SIR HENRY TAYLOR
deservedly, since it is by far his finest production. Other dramas are
the historical 'Edwin the Fair' (1842), the romantic comedy 'The
Virgin Widow' (1850), and St. Clement's Eve' (1862).
His essays
on political and literary topics are gathered in the three volumes
'The Statesman' (1836), 'Notes from Life' (1847), and Notes from
Books' (1849). His non-dramatic verse appears in The Eve of the
Conquest, and Other Poems' (1847), and in 'A Sicilian Summer, and
Minor Poems' (1868), of which the title-piece is the already noted
'The Virgin Widow' under another name.
'Philip Van Artevelde' is a historical drama in two parts, or
two five-act plays. Its length alone would preclude its production
in a theatre; but in all respects it is a closet drama, to be read rather
than enacted upon the stage. It makes use of the fourteenth-century
Flemish struggle, in which Van Artevelde was a protagonist; the first
play carrying the leader to his height of power, the second conduct-
ing him to his downfall and death. Taylor has a feeling for char-
acter; he gets the spirit of the age, and writes vigorous blank verse,
rising at times to an incisive strength and nobility of diction which
suggests the Elizabethans. The sympathetic handling of Philip Van
Artevelde' has been explained by the fact that certain incidents in
the Fleming's career-those having to do with his love-tally with
Taylor's own subjective experiences. 'Philip Van Artevelde' is
weakest on the purely dramatic side: as a study and description
of character in an interesting historical setting, it is admirable,—a
drama that can always be read with pleasure. The lyrics it contains
show the author at his happiest in this kind.
The works of Sir Henry Taylor were published in five volumes in
1868. His very entertaining biography appeared in 1885, the Corre-
spondence following in 1888. He died on March 28th, 1886, at Bourne-
mouth, where he spent his final days in the sun of general esteem
and regard. He had attained to the good old age of nearly eighty-
six.
SONG
OWN lay in a nook my lady's brach,
And said, "My feet are sore,-
I cannot follow with the pack
A-hunting of the boar.
Do
"And though the horn sounds never so clear
With the hounds in loud uproar,
Yet I must stop and lie down here,
Because my feet are sore. "
## p. 14541 (#103) ##########################################
SIR HENRY TAYLOR
14541
The huntsman when he heard the same,
What answer did he give? —
"The dog that's lame is much to blame,
He is not fit to live. "
ARETINA'S SONG
From A Sicilian Summer›
I'M
'M A bird that's free
Of the land and sea;
I wander whither I will;
But oft on the wing
I falter and sing,
O fluttering heart, be still,
Be still,
O fluttering heart, be still!
I'm wild as the wind,
But soft and kind,
And wander whither I may;
The eyebright sighs,
And says with its eyes,
Thou wandering wind, oh stay,
Oh stay,
Thou wandering wind, oh stay!
TO H. C.
(IN REPLY)
T MAY be folly, - they are free
Who think it so, to laugh or blame,-
But single sympathies to me
Are more than fame.
The glen and not the mountain-top
I love; and though its date be brief,
I snatch the rose you send, and drop
The laurel leaf.
## p. 14542 (#104) ##########################################
14542
SIR HENRY TAYLOR
Clara-
THE FAMINE
From Philip Van Artevelde
Α'
RTEVELDE -Now render me account of what befell
Where thou hast been to-day.
Clara-
I paid a visit first to Ukenheim,
The man who whilome saved our father's life
When certain Clementists and ribald folk
Assailed him at Malines. He came last night,
And said he knew not if we owed him aught;
But if we did, a peck of oatmeal now
Would pay the debt and save more lives than one.
I went. It seemed a wealthy man's abode:
The costly drapery and good house-gear
Had, in an ordinary time, made known
That with the occupant the world went well.
By a low couch, curtained with cloth of frieze,
Sat Ukenheim, a famine-stricken man,
-
Not much is that.
With either bony fist upon his knees
And his long back upright. His eyes were fixed
And moved not, though some gentle words I spake:
Until a little urchin of a child
That called him father, crept to where he sat
And plucked him by the sleeve, and with its small
And skinny finger pointed; then he rose
And with a low obeisance, and a smile
That looked like watery moonlight on his face,
So pale and weak a smile, he bade me welcome.
I told him that a lading of wheat-flour
Was on its way; whereat, to my surprise,
His countenance fell, and he had almost wept.
Artevelde-Poor soul! and wherefore?
That I saw too soon.
He plucked aside the curtain of the couch,
And there two children's bodies lay composed.
Breathes amid fields and forests hard of heart,-
Bereft of joy I stray from crowds apart
In this dark vale, 'mid grief and ire's foul air,
Where there is nothing left of bright or fair.
Since Love has gone a rustic to the plow,
Or feeds his flocks, or in the summer now
Handles the rake, now plies the scythe with care.
Happy the mead and valley, hill and wood,
Where man and beast, and almost tree and stone,
Seem by her look with sense and joy endued!
What is not changed on which her eyes e'er shone?
The country courteous grows, the city rude,
Even from her presence or her loss alone.
--
Translation of Richard Henry Wilde.
*A play on the word "L'Aura» (the breeze) and the name Laura.
## p. 14518 (#80) ###########################################
14518
BAYARD TAYLOR
BAYARD TAYLOR
(1825-1878)
BY ALBERT H. SMYTH
B
AYARD TAYLOR was born in Kennett Square, Chester County,
Pennsylvania, January 11th, 1825. The story of his life is
the history of a struggle. His career began in humble cir-
cumstances, and ended in splendor. The love of letters was awak-
ened in him in childhood; he yielded passionate homage to the great
names of literature. When he was seven years old he grieved over
the death of Goethe and of Scott, and in
the same year (1832) composed his first
poems. His early surroundings tended to
repress his enthusiasms. He inherited two
strains of blood, German and English. By
the first he was related to the Lancaster
Mennonites who had migrated from East
Switzerland, and who spoke the Pennsylva-
nia Dutch dialect; by the other he was kin
to the seventeenth-century Mendenhall fam-
ily of Wiltshire, and the Cheshire Taylors.
He was raised in a Quaker atmosphere
which suppressed imagination and emotion.
When he was nineteen years old, he said he
felt as if he were sitting in an exhausted
receiver, while the air which should nourish his spiritual life could
only be found in distant lands. The courage, restless curiosity, and
push of the country lad found a way to finer air. He published
in 1844 a little volume of poems called 'Ximena, or the Battle of
the Sierra Morena. ' With the small profits of this literary venture,
and a few dollars advanced by Philadelphia editors, Bayard Taylor,
in company with two friends, left New York July 1st, 1844, bound
for Liverpool. For two years he traveled on foot through Europe,
eagerly studying the memorials of art and history, enduring every
hardship and privation, often penniless and hungry, never without
hope and courage, and always welcoming returning joy.
"Born in the New World, ripened in the old," Berthold Auerbach
Isaid of him. This first tramp trip abroad was symbolic of his whole
## p. 14519 (#81) ###########################################
BAYARD TAYLOR
14519
life. It showed splendid energy, and acute sensibility; and it was
really Bayard Taylor's university education, supplying the deficien-
cies of his simple life and country schooling. Although a safe and
at times brilliant literary critic, and although his wide reading quali-
fied him for the professorship of German literature at Cornell Univer-
sity, he was not a scholar. He was never sure of his Latin, and
Greek he did not begin to study until he was fifty. His education
came largely from travel; he picked his knowledge from the living
bush.
It was as a traveler that he was most widely known, though it
was the reputation that he least cared for. . His great success as
a public lecturer was largely due to his fame as a traveler. He
published eleven books of travel, beginning with 'Views Afoot, or
Europe Seen with Knapsack and Staff' (1846),—a work so popular
that it went through twenty editions in ten years.
N. P. Willis introduced Bayard Taylor to the literary society of
New York; and before the end of January 1848, Horace Greeley
offered him a situation on the Tribune. In one capacity or another
he continued to serve the Tribune until his death; and he was one
of the most eagerly industrious and prolific writers on the staff. For
the Tribune he visited California in 1849; and his letters from the
gold fields were republished in 'Eldorado, or Adventures in the Path
of Empire. '
Two years of distant travel, in Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, pro-
ceeding by the White Nile to the country of the Shillooks, gave him
the materials for 'A Journey to Central Africa,' 'The Lands of the
Saracen,' and 'A Visit to India, China, and Japan. '
Subsequent journeys resulted in Northern Travel,' Travels in
Greece and Russia,' 'At Home and Abroad,' 'Colorado: a Summer
Trip,' and 'Byways of Europe. ' The chief merit of Taylor's books
of travel is reporterial. They tell of adventure, of courage and per-
sistence. They make no pretense to antiquarian knowledge, they at-
tempt no theory or speculation; but simply and vividly they tell the
visible aspects of the countries they describe. Architecture, scenery,
and habits of life, stand in clear outline, and justify the criticism
that has named Bayard Taylor "the best American reporter of scenes
and incidents. "
<
Bayard Taylor's literary triumphs were not made in English lit-
erature alone. His inclinations were toward German life and let-
ters. Goethe was his chief literary passion. Like, him he yearned
after "the unshackled range of all experience. " The calm self-poise
and symmetrical culture of Goethe fascinated him. He craved intel-
lectual novelty, and continually wheeled into new orbits; seeking, as
he wrote to E. C. Stedman, "the establishing of my own Entelecheia
## p. 14520 (#82) ###########################################
14520
BAYARD TAYLOR
the making of all that is possible out of such powers as I may have,
without violently forcing or distorting them. " Astonishing versatility
is the chief note of his life and of his inclusive literary career. He
was famous as a traveler, and successful as a diplomatist in Russia
and in Germany. To his eleven volumes of travels he added four
novels, several short stories, a history of Germany, two volumes of
critical essays and studies in German and English literature, a famous
translation of 'Faust,' and thirteen volumes of poems comprising
almost every variety of verses,— odes, idyls, ballads, lyrics, pastorals,
dramatic romances, and lyrical dramas.
For seven years he worked upon his translation of Faust,'
which he completed in 1870. The immense difficulties of the poem
he attacked with unresting energy, and with a singularly intimate
knowledge of the German language. He undertook to render the
poem in the original metres, and in this respect succeeded beyond
all other translators. The dedication 'An Goethe' which Taylor pub-
lished in his translation is a masterpiece of German verse.
It can
stand side by side with Goethe's own dedication without paling a syl-
lable. Taylor was completely saturated with German literature; and
in his lectures upon Lessing, Klopstock, Schiller, and Goethe, his
illustrative quotations were the genuine droppings from the comb.
He was widely read and appreciated in Germany. When he delivered
in German, at Weimar, his lecture upon American literature, the
whole court was present; and among his auditors were the grand-
children of Carl August, Goethe, Schiller, Herder, and Wieland. When
he was minister to Berlin, every facility was given him to pursue
those studies in the lives of Goethe and Schiller which would have
resulted in the crowning work of his life, but which were destined
never to be completed.
It was partly with the hope of working a lucrative literary vein
that would take the place of the repugnant lecturing trade, that he
turned his attention to the novel. 'Hannah Thurston' and 'The
Story of Kennett' are attempts to interpret the life of his native
region in Pennsylvania. The beautiful pastoral landscapes of the
Chester valley, and the homely life of its fertile farms, he dwells
affectionately upon; but the curious crotchets and fads of the Quaker
community in which he grew up are ridiculed and rebuked. Spirit-
ualism, vegetarianism, teetotalism, and all the troop of unreasoning
"isms" of the hour, enter into the plot of Hannah Thurston. ' 'John
Godfrey's Fortunes' is constructed out of the author's literary and
social experiences in New York about 1850, and is to a considerable
extent autobiographical.
Bayard Taylor's darling ambition was to be remembered as a
poet. However he might experiment in other fields of literature, and
## p. 14521 (#83) ###########################################
BAYARD TAYLOR
14521
however enviable the distinctions he might win in statecraft and
in scholarship, nothing could reconcile him to the slightest sense of
failure in his poetic endeavor. He had real lyric genius, as is abund-
antly shown in the 'Poems of the Orient': 'The Bedouin Song'-
paralleled only in Shelley-and The Song of the Camp' are two
lyrics that will last as long as anything in American poetry. The
sadness of Bayard Taylor's life was its frustrated purpose. It was a
full and happy life as a whole, for his work was a joy to him, and
he dwelt always in an atmosphere of generous and noble thoughts;
yet the reward often seemed inadequate to the high endeavor. He
had a generous plan of life, he was ambitious for himself and family.
He acquired a large estate, and built an expensive house, - Cedar-
croft, at Kennett Square, and lived an open, generous, hospitable
life. Involved in heavy domestic expenses, he never knew the value
of freedom. His life became a struggle for the means to live, and he
had neither time nor opportunity to refine his exquisite sense of lyric
harmony.
He planned great poems like 'Prince Deukalion' and 'The Masque
of the Gods,' which insensibly convey the impression of vast move-
ments in human affairs, of the strange stirrings of nations and races,
but which are distinctly poems of the intellect. He had splendid rhet-
oric, and his verse was sonorous, resonant, and at times. as in the
'National Ode'-stately. Had he devoted himself to song, he would
have been a noble poet; but he had a dozen kinds of talent, and he
had restless curiosity and ambition. His health failed under the
stress of labor and the strain of care. In 1878 he was appointed
minister to Germany. At last success seemed to be attained, and the
long struggle was over. But his vital powers were overtaxed. He
took the ovations of his friends with an abandon which left him
physically exhausted long before he sailed. He died in Berlin, Decem-
ber 19th, 1878.
Allesse. Amy to
―
## p. 14522 (#84) ###########################################
14522
BAYARD TAYLOR
FITZ-GREENE HALLECK
Address at the dedication of the Halleck Monument at Guilford, Connecticut,
July 8th, 1869. From 'Critical Essays and Literary Notes. ' Copyright
1880, by G. P. Putnam's Sons.
E HAVE been eighty years an organized nation, ninety-three
years an independent people, more than two hundred
years an American race; and to-day, for the first time
in our history, we meet to dedicate publicly, with appropriate
honors, a monument to an American poet. The occasion is thus
lifted above the circle of personal memories which inspired it,
and takes its place as the beginning of a new epoch in the story
of our culture. It carries our thoughts back of the commence-
ment of this individual life, into the elements from which our
literature grew; and forward, far beyond the closing of the tomb
before us, into the possible growth and glory of the future.
The rhythmical expression of emotion, or passion, or thought,
is a need of the human race coeval with speech, universal as
religion, the prophetic forerunner as well as the last-begotten off-
spring of civilization. Poetry belongs equally to the impressible
childhood of a people and to the refined ease of their maturity.
It is both the instinctive effort of nature and the loftiest ideal
of art; receding to farther and farther spheres of spiritual beauty
as men rise to the capacity for its enjoyment. But our race was
transferred, half-grown, from the songs of its early ages and the
inspiring associations of its past, and set here face to face with
stern tasks which left no space for the lighter play of the mind.
The early generations of English bards gradually become for-
eign to us; for their songs, however sweet, were not those of
our home. We profess to claim an equal share in Chaucer
and Spenser and Shakespeare, but it is a hollow pretense. They
belong to our language, but we cannot truly feel that they
belong to us as a people. The destiny that placed us on this
soil robbed us of the magic of tradition, the wealth of romance,
the suggestions of history, the sentiment of inherited homes and
customs, and left us, shorn of our lisping childhood, to create a
poetic literature for ourselves.
It is not singular, therefore, that this continent should have
waited long for its first-born poet. The intellect, the energy of
character, the moral force,-even the occasional taste and refine-
ment,— which were shipped hither from the older shores, found
## p. 14523 (#85) ###########################################
BAYARD TAYLOR
14523
the hard work of history already portioned out for them; and the
Muses discovered no nook of guarded leisure, no haunt of sweet
contemplation, which might tempt them to settle among us.
Labor may be prayer, but it is not poetry. Liberty of conscience
and worship, practical democracy, the union of civil order and
personal independence, are ideas which may warm the hearts and
brains of men; but the soil in which they strike root is too full
of fresh, unsoftened forces to produce the delicate wine of song.
The highest product of ripened intellect cannot be expected in
the nonage of a nation. The poetry of our colonial and revolu-
tionary periods is mostly a spiritless imitation of inferior models
in the parent country. If here and there some timid, uncertain
voice seems to guess the true language, we only hear it once or
twice; like those colonized nightingales which for one brief sum-
mer gave their new song to the Virginian moonlights, and then
disappeared. These early fragments of our poetry are chanted in
the midst of such profound silence and loneliness that they sound
spectrally to our ears. Philip Freneau is almost as much a shade
to us as are his own hunter and deer.
In the same year in which the Constitution of the United
States was completed and adopted, the first poet was born,-
Richard Henry Dana. Less than three years after him Fitz-
Greene Halleck came into the world, the lyrical genius follow-
ing the grave and contemplative Muse of his elder brother. In
Halleck, therefore, we mourn our first loss out of the first gener-
ation of American bards; and a deeper significance is thus given
to the personal honors which we lovingly pay to his memory.
Let us be glad, not only that these honors have been so nobly
deserved, but also that we find in him a fitting representative of
his age!
Let us forget our sorrow for the true man, the stead-
fast friend, and rejoice that the earliest child of song whom we
return to the soil that bore him for us, was the brave, bright,
and beautiful growth of a healthy, masculine race! No morbid
impatience with the restrictions of life, no fruitless lament over
an unattainable ideal, no inherited gloom of temperament, such
as finds delight in what it chooses to call despair, ever muffled
the clear notes of his verse, or touched the sunny cheerfulness
of his history. The cries and protests, the utterances of "world-
pain," with which so many of his contemporaries in Europe filled
the world, awoke no echo in his sound and sturdy nature. His
life offers no enigmas for our solution. No romantic mystery
-
## p. 14524 (#86) ###########################################
14524
BAYARD TAYLOR
floats around his name, to win for him the interest of a shallow
sentimentalism. Clear, frank, simple, and consistent, his song and
his life were woven into one smooth and even thread. We would
willingly pardon in him some expression of dissatisfaction with a
worldly fate which in certain respects seemed inadequate to his
genius; but we find that he never uttered it. The basis of his
nature was a knightly bravery, of such firm and enduring temper
that it kept from him even the ordinary sensitiveness of the
poetic character. From the time of his studies as a boy, in the
propitious kitchen which heard his first callow numbers, to the last
days of a life which had seen no liberal popular recognition of
his deserts, he accepted his fortune with the perfect dignity of a
man who cannot stoop to discontent. During his later visits to
New York, the simplest, the most unobtrusive, yet the cheerful-
est man to be seen among the throngs of Broadway, was Fitz-
Greene Halleck. Yet with all his simplicity, his bearing was
strikingly gallant and fearless; the carriage of his head suggested
the wearing of a helmet. The genial frankness and grace of his
manner in his intercourse with men has suggested to others the
epithet "courtly"; but I prefer to call it manly, as the expres-
sion of a rarer and finer quality than is usually found in the
atmosphere of courts.
Halleck was loyal to himself as a man, and he was also loyal
to his art as a poet. His genius was essentially lyrical, and he
seems to have felt instinctively its natural limitations. He qui-
etly and gratefully accepted the fame which followed his best pro-
ductions, but he never courted public applause. Even the swift
popularity of the Croaker series could not seduce him to take
advantage of the tide, which then promised a speedy flood. At
periods in his history when anything from his pen would have
been welcomed by a class of readers whose growing taste found
so little sustenance at home, he remained silent because he felt
no immediate personal necessity of poetic utterance. The Ger-
man poet Uhland said to me: "I cannot now say whether I
shall write any more, because I only write when I feel the posi-
tive need; and this is independent of my will, or the wish of
others. " Such was also the law of Halleck's mind, and of the
mind of every poet who reveres his divine gift. God cannot
accept a mechanical prayer; and I do not compare sacred things
with profane when I say that a poem cannot be accepted which
does not compel its own inspired utterance. He is the true
## p. 14525 (#87) ###########################################
BAYARD TAYLOR
14525
priest of the human heart and the human soul who rhythmically
expresses the emotions and the aspirations of his own.
It has been said of Halleck as of Campbell, that "he was
afraid of the shadow which his own fame cast before him. " I
protest against the use of a clever epigrammatic sentence to
misinterpret the poetic nature to men. The inference is that
poets write merely for that popular recognition which is called
fame; and having attained a certain degree, fear to lose it by
later productions which may not prove so acceptable. A writer
influenced by such a consideration never deserved the name of
poet. It is an unworthy estimate of his character which thus
explains the honest and honorable silence of Fitz-Greene Halleck.
The quality of genius is not to be measured by its productive
activity. The brain which gave us 'Alnwick Castle,' 'Marco
Bozzaris,' 'Burns,' and 'Red Jacket,' was not exhausted; it was
certainly capable of other and equally admirable achievements:
but the fortunate visits of the Muse are not to be compelled by
the poet's will; and Halleck endured her absence without com-
plaint, as he had enjoyed her favors without ostentation. The
very fact that he wrote so little, proclaims the sincerity of his
genius, and harmonizes with the entire character of his life. It
was enough for him that he first let loose the Theban eagle in
our songless American air. He was glad and satisfied to know
that his lyrics have entered into and become a part of the
national life; that
"Sweet tears dim the eyes unshed,
And wild vows falter on the tongue,"
when his lines, keen and flexible as fire, burn in the ears of the
young who shall hereafter sing, and fight, and labor, and love, for
"God and their native land! "
It is not necessary that we should attempt to determine his
relative place among American poets. It is sufficient that he
has his assured place, and that his name is a permanent part of
our literary history. It is sufficient that he deserves every honor
which we
can render to his memory, not only as one of the
very first representatives of American song, but from his intrinsic
quality as a poet. Let us rather be thankful for every star
set in our heaven, than seek to ascertain how they differ from
one another in glory. If any critic would diminish the loving
enthusiasm of those whose lives have been brightened by the
## p. 14526 (#88) ###########################################
14526
BAYARD TAYLOR
poet's personal sunshine, let him remember that the sternest criti-
cism will set the lyrics of Halleck higher than their author's un-
ambitious estimate. They will in time fix their own just place
in our poetic annals. Halleck is still too near our orbit for the
computation of an exact parallax; but we may safely leave his
measure of fame to the decision of impartial Time. A poem
which bears within itself its own right to existence, will not die.
Its rhythm is freshly fed from the eternal pulses of beauty,
whence flows the sweetest life of the human race. Age cannot
quench its original fire, or repetition make dull its immortal
music. It forever haunts that purer atmosphere which overlies
the dust and smoke of our petty cares and our material interests
- often indeed calling to us like a distant clarion, to keep awake
the senses of intellectual delight which would else perish from
our lives. The poetic literature of a land is the finer and purer
ether above its material growth and the vicissitudes of its his-
tory. Where it was vacant and barren for us, except perchance
a feeble lark-note here and there, Dana, Halleck, and Bryant rose
together on steadier wings, and gave voices to the solitude: Dana
with a broad, grave undertone, like that of the sea; Bryant with
a sound as of the wind in summer woods, and the fall of waters
in mountain dells; and Halleck with strains blown from a sil-
ver trumpet, breathing manly fire and courage. Many voices
have followed them; the ether rings with new melodies, and yet
others come to lure all the aspirations of our hearts, and echo
all the yearnings of our separated destiny: but we shall not for-
get the forerunners who rose in advance of their welcome, and
created their own audience by their songs.
Thus it is that in dedicating a monument to Fitz-Greene Hal-
leck to-day, we symbolize the intellectual growth of the American.
people. They have at last taken that departure which repre-
sents the higher development of a nation,- the capacity to value
the genius which cannot work with material instruments; which
is unmoved by Atlantic Cables, Pacific Railroads, and any show
of marvelous statistical tables; which grandly dispenses with the
popular measures of success; which simply expresses itself, with-
out consciously working for the delight of others; yet which, once
recognized, stands thenceforth as a part of the glory of the whole
people. It is a token that we have relaxed the rough work of
two and a half centuries, and are beginning to enjoy that rest
and leisure out of which the grace and beauty of civilization
## p. 14527 (#89) ###########################################
BAYARD TAYLOR
14527
grow. The pillars of our political fabric have been slowly and
massively raised, like the drums of Doric columns; but they still
need the crowning capitals and the sculptured entablature. Law,
and Right, and Physical Development build well, but they are
cold, mathematical architects: the Poet and the Artist make
beautiful the temple. Our natural tendency, as a people, is to
worship positive material achievement in whatever form it is dis-
played; even the poet must be a partisan before the government
will recognize his existence. So much of our intellectual energy
has been led into the new paths which our national growth
has opened, so exacting are the demands upon working brains,
that taste and refinement of mind, and warm appreciation of the
creative spirit of beauty, are only beginning to bloom here and
there among us, like tender exotic flowers. "The light that never
was on sea or land" shines all around us, but few are the eyes
whose vision it clarifies. Yet the faculty is here, and the earnest
need. The delight in art, of which poetry is the highest mani-
festation, has ceased to be the privilege of a fortunate few, and
will soon become, let us hope, the common heritage of the peo-
ple. If any true song has heretofore been sung to unheeding
ears, let us behold, in this dedication, the sign that our reproach
is taken away,- that henceforth every new melody of the land
shall spread in still expanding vibrations, until all shall learn to
listen!
The life of the poet who sleeps here represents the long
period of transition between the appearance of American poetry
and the creation of an appreciative and sympathetic audience for
it. We must honor him all the more that in the beginning he
was content with the few who heard him; that the agitations of
national life through which he passed could not ruffle the clear
flow of his song; and that, with a serene equanimity of temper
which is the rarest American virtue, he saw, during his whole
life, wealth and personal distinction constantly passing into less.
deserving hands, without temptation and without envy. All pop-
ular superstitions concerning the misanthropy or the irritable
temper of genius were disproved in him: I have never known a
man so independent of the moods and passions of his generation.
We cannot regret that he should have been chosen to assist in
the hard pioneer work of our literature, because he seemed to be
so unconscious of its privations. Yet he and his co-mates have
walked a rough, and for the most part a lonely track, leaving a
## p. 14528 (#90) ###########################################
14528
BAYARD TAYLOR
smoother way broken for their followers. They have blazed their
trails through the wilderness, and carved their sounding names on
the silent mountain peaks; teaching the scenery of our homes a
language, and giving it a rarer and tenderer charm than even
the atmosphere of great historic deeds. Fitz-Greene Halleck has
set his seal upon the gray rock of Connecticut, on the heights
of Weehawken, on the fair valley of Wyoming, and the Field of
the Grounded Arms. He has done his manly share in forcing
this half-subdued nature in which we live, to accept a human
harmony, and cover its soulless beauty with the mantle of his
verse.
However our field of poetic literature may bloom, whatever
products of riper culture may rise to overshadow its present
growths, the memory of Halleck is perennially rooted at its
entrance. Recognizing the purity of his genius, the nobility of
his character, we gratefully and affectionately dedicate to him
this monument. There is no cypress in the wreath which we
lay upon his grave. We do not meet to chant a dirge over un-
fulfilled promises or an insufficient destiny. We have no willful
defiance of the world to excuse, no sensitive protest to justify.
Our hymn of consecration is cheerful, though solemn.
Look-
ing forward from this hallowed ground, we can only behold a
future for our poetry, sunnier than its past. We see the love of
beauty born from the servitude to use; the recognition of an
immortal ideal element gradually evolved from the strength of
natures which have conquered material forces; the growth of all
fine and gracious attributes of imagination and fancy, to warm
and sweeten and expand the stately coldness of intellect. We
dream of days when the highest and deepest utterances of rhyth-
mical thought shall be met with grateful welcome, not with dull
amazement or mean suspicion. We wait for voices which shall
no more say to the poet, "Stay here, at the level of our delight
in you! " but which shall say to him, "Higher, still higher!
though we may not reach you, yet in following we shall rise! "
And as our last prophetic hope, we look for that fortunate age
when the circle of sympathy, now so limited, shall be coextensive
with the nation, and when, even as the poet loves his land, his
land shall love her poet!
-
## p. 14529 (#91) ###########################################
BAYARD TAYLOR
14529
[The following poems of Bayard Taylor are all copyrighted, and are repub-
lished here by permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , publishers. ]
CHARMIAN
DAUGHTER of the sun,
O
Who gave the keys of passion unto thee?
Who taught the powerful sorcery
Wherein my soul, too willing to be won,
Still feebly struggles to be free.
But more than half undone?
Within the mirror of thine eyes,
Full of the sleep of warm Egyptian skies,-
The sleep of lightning, bound in airy spell,
And deadlier, because invisible,-
I see the reflex of a feeling
Which was not till I looked on thee;
A power, involved in mystery,
That shrinks, affrighted, from its own revealing.
Thou sitt'st in stately indolence,
Too calm to feel a breath of passion start
The listless fibres of thy sense,
The fiery slumber of thy heart.
Thine eyes are wells of darkness, by the veil
Of languid lids half-sealed; the pale
And bloodless olive of thy face,
And the full, silent lips that wear
A ripe serenity of grace,
Are dark beneath the shadow of thy hair.
Not from the brow of templed Athor beams
Such tropic warmth along the path of dreams;
Not from the lips of hornèd Isis flows
Such sweetness of repose!
For thou art Passion's self, a goddess too,
And aught but worship never knew;
And thus thy glances, calm and sure,
Look for accustomed homage, and betray
No effort to assert thy sway:
Thou deem'st my fealty secure.
XXV-909
O Sorceress! those looks unseal
The undisturbèd mysteries that press
Too deep in nature for the heart to feel
Their terror and their loveliness.
## p. 14530 (#92) ###########################################
14530
BAYARD TAYLOR
Thine eyes are torches that illume
On secret shrines their unforeboded fires,
And fill the vaults of silence and of gloom
With the unresisting life of new desires.
I follow where their arrowy ray
Pierces the veil I would not tear away,
And with a dread, delicious awe behold
Another gate of life unfold,
Like the rapt neophyte who sees
Some march of grand Osirian mysteries.
The startled chambers I explore,
And every entrance open lies,
Forced by the magic thrill that runs before
Thy slowly lifted eyes.
I tremble to the centre of my being
Thus to confess the spirit's poise o'erthrown,
And all its guiding virtues blown
Like leaves before the whirlwind's fury fleeing.
But see! one memory rises in my soul,
And beaming steadily and clear,
Scatters the lurid thunder-clouds that roll
Through Passion's sultry atmosphere.
An alchemy more potent borrow
For thy dark eyes, enticing Sorceress!
For on the casket of a sacred Sorrow
Their shafts fall powerless.
Nay, frown not, Athor, from thy mystic shrine:
Strong Goddess of Desire, I will not be
One of the myriad slaves thou callest thine,
To cast my manhood's crown of royalty
Before thy dangerous beauty: I am free!
ARIEL IN THE CLOVEN PINE
N°
ow the frosty stars are gone:
I have watched them one by one,
Fading on the shores of Dawn.
Round and full the glorious sun
Walks with level step the spray,
Through his vestibule of Day,
While the wolves that late did howl
Slink to dens and coverts foul,
Guarded by the demon owl,
## p. 14531 (#93) ###########################################
BAYARD TAYLOR
14531
Who, last night, with mocking croon,
Wheeled athwart the chilly moon,
And with eyes that blankly glared
On my direful torment stared.
The lark is flickering in the light;
Still the nightingale doth sing:-
All the isle, alive with spring,
Lies, a jewel of delight,
On the blue sea's heaving breast:
Not a breath from out the west,
But some balmy smell doth bring
From the sprouting myrtle buds,
Or from meadowy vales that lie
Like a green inverted sky,
Which the yellow cowslip stars,
And the bloomy almond woods,
Cloud-like, cross with roseate bars.
All is life that I can spy,
To the farthest sea and sky,
And my own the only pain
Within this ring of Tyrrhene main.
In the gnarled and cloven pine
Where that hell-born hag did chain me,
All this orb of cloudless shine,
All this youth in Nature's veins
Tingling with the season's wine,
With a sharper torment pain me.
Pansies in soft April rains
Fill their stalks with honeyed sap
Drawn from Earth's prolific lap;
But the sluggish blood she brings
To the tough pine's hundred rings,
Closer locks their cruel hold,
Closer draws the scaly bark
Round the crevice, damp and cold,
Where my useless wings I fold,-
Sealing me in iron dark.
By this coarse and alien state
Is my dainty ess
essence wronged;
Finer senses that belonged
To my freedom, chafe at Fate,
Till the happier elves I hate,
## p. 14532 (#94) ###########################################
14532
BAYARD TAYLOR
Who in moonlight dances turn
Underneath the palmy fern,
Or in light and twinkling bands.
Follow on with linkèd hands
To the ocean's yellow sands.
Primrose-eyes each morning ope
In their cool deep beds of grass;
Violets make the airs that pass
Telltales of their fragrant slope.
I can see them where they spring,
Never brushed by fairy wing.
All those corners I can spy
In the island's solitude,
Where the dew is never dry,
Nor the miser bees intrude.
Cups of rarest hue are there,
Full of perfumed wine undrained,—
Mushroom banquets, ne'er profaned,
Canopied by maiden-hair.
Pearls I see upon the sands,
Never touched by other hands;
And the rainbow bubbles shine
On the ridged and frothy brine,
Tenantless of voyager
Till they burst in vacant air.
Oh, the songs that sung might be,
And the mazy dances woven,
Had that witch ne'er crossed the sea
And the pine been never cloven!
Many years my direst pain
Has made the wave-rocked isle complain.
Winds that from the Cyclades
Came to blow in wanton riot
Round its shore's enchanted quiet,
Bore my wailings on the seas;
Sorrowing birds in Autumn went
Through the world with my lament.
Still the bitter fate is mine,
All delight unshared to see,
Smarting in the cloven pine,
While I wait the tardy axe
Which perchance shall set me free
From the damned witch Sycorax.
## p. 14533 (#95) ###########################################
BAYARD TAYLOR
14533
BEDOUIN SONG
FRO
ROM the Desert I come to thee
On a stallion shod with fire;
And the winds are left behind
In the speed of my desire.
Under thy window I stand,
And the midnight hears my cry:
I love thee, I love but thee,
With a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment
Book unfold!
Look from thy window and see
My passion and my pain;
I lie on the sands below,
And I faint in thy disdain.
Let the night-winds touch thy brow
With the heat of my burning sigh,
And melt thee to hear the vow
Of a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment
Book unfold!
My steps are nightly driven
By the fever in my breast,
To hear from thy lattice breathed
The word that shall give me rest.
Open the door of thy heart,
And open thy chamber door,
And my kisses shall teach thy lips
The love that shall fade no more
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment
Book unfold!
## p. 14534 (#96) ###########################################
14534
BAYARD TAYLOR
HYLAS
TORM-WEARIED Argo slept upon the water.
No cloud was seen; on blue and craggy Ida
The hot noon lay, and on the plain's enamel;
Cool, in his bed, alone, the swift Scamander.
STO
་ Why should I haste? " said young and rosy Hylas:
"The seas were rough, and long the way from Colchis.
Beneath the snow-white awning slumbers Jason,
Pillowed upon his tame Thessalian panther;
The shields are piled, the listless oars suspended
On the black thwarts, and all the hairy bondsmen
Doze on the benches. They may wait for water,
Till I have bathed in mountain-born Scamander. "
So said, unfilleting his purple chlamys,
And putting down his urn, he stood a moment,
Breathing the faint, warm odor of the blossoms
That spangled thick the lovely Dardan meadows.
Then stooping lightly, loosened he his buskins,
And felt with shrinking feet the crispy verdure;-
Naked save one light robe that from his shoulder
Hung to his knee, the youthful flush revealing
Of warm white limbs, half-nerved with coming manhood.
Yet fair and smooth with tenderness of beauty.
Now to the river's sandy marge advancing,
He dropped the robe, and raised his head exulting
In the clear sunshine, that with beam embracing
Held him against Apollo's glowing bosom.
For sacred to Latona's son is Beauty,
Sacred is Youth, the joy of youthful feeling.
A joy indeed, a living joy, was Hylas;
Whence Jove-begotten Hêraclês, the mighty,
To men though terrible, to him was gentle,-
Smoothing his rugged nature into laughter
When the boy stole his club, or from his shoulders
Dragged the huge paws of the Nemean lion.
The thick brown locks, tossed backward from his forehead.
Fell soft about his temples; manhood's blossom
Not yet had sprouted on his chin, but freshly
Curved the fair cheek, and full the red lips, parting,
Like a loose bow, that just has launched its arrow.
His large blue eyes, with joy dilate and beamy,
Were clear as the unshadowed Grecian heaven;
Dewy and sleek his dimpled shoulders rounded
## p. 14535 (#97) ###########################################
BAYARD TAYLOR
14535
To the white arms and whiter breast between them.
Downward, the supple lines had less of softness:
His back was like a god's; his loins were molded
As if some pulse of power began to waken;
The springy fullness of his thighs, outswerving,
Sloped to his knee, and lightly dropping downward,
Drew the curved lines that breathe, in rest, of motion.
He saw his glorious limbs reversely mirrored
In the still wave, and stretched his foot to press it
On the smooth sole that answered at the surface:
Alas! the shape dissolved in glimmering fragments.
Then, timidly at first, he dipped; and catching
Quick breath, with tingling shudder, as the waters
Swirled round his thighs; and deeper, slowly deeper,
Till on his breast the River's cheek was pillowed;
And deeper still, till every shoreward ripple
Talked in his ear, and like a cygnet's bosom
His white round shoulder shed the dripping crystal.
There, as he floated with a rapturous motion,
The lucid coolness folding close around him,
The lily-cradling ripples murmured, "Hylas! "
He shook from off his ears the hyacinthine
Curls that had lain unwet upon the water,
And still the ripples murmured, "Hylas! Hylas! "
He thought: "The voices are but ear-born music.
Pan dwells not here, and Echo still is calling
From some high cliff that tops a Thracian valley ·
So long mine ears, on tumbling Hellespontus,
Have heard the sea waves hammer Argo's forehead,
That I misdeem the fluting of this current
For some lost nymph-" Again the murmur, "Hylas! "
And with the sound a cold smooth arm around him
Slid like a wave, and down the clear green darkness
Glimmered on either side a shining bosom, —
Glimmered, uprising slow; and ever closer
Wound the cold arms, till, climbing to his shoulders,
Their cheeks lay nestled, while the purple tangles
Their loose hair made, in silken mesh enwound him.
Their eyes of clear pale emerald then uplifting,
They kissed his neck with lips of humid coral,
And once again there came a murmur, "Hylas!
Oh, come with us! Oh, follow where we wander
Deep down beneath the green, translucent ceiling,-
Where on the sandy bed of old Scamander
## p. 14536 (#98) ###########################################
14536
BAYARD TAYLOR
With cool white buds we braid our purple tresses,
Lulled by the bubbling waves around us stealing!
Thou fair Greek boy, oh, come with us! Oh, follow
Where thou no more shalt hear Propontis riot,
But by our arms be lapped in endless quiet,
Within the glimmering caves of Ocean hollow!
We have no love; alone, of all the Immortals,
We have no love. Oh, love us, we who press thee
With faithful arms, though cold,-whose lips caress thee,-
Who hold thy beauty prisoned! Love us, Hylas! ”
The boy grew chill to feel their twining pressure
Lock round his limbs, and bear him vainly striving,
Down from the noonday brightness. "Leave me, Naiads!
Leave me! " he cried: "the day to me dearer
Than all your caves deep-sphered in Ocean's quiet.
I am but mortal, seek but mortal pleasure;
I would not change this flexile, warm existence,
Though swept by storms, and shocked by Jove's dread thunder,
To be a king beneath the dark-green waters. "
Still moaned the human lips, between their kisses,
"We have no love. Oh, love us, we who love thee! "
And came in answer, thus, the words of Hylas: —
My love is mortal. For the Argive maidens
I keep the kisses which your lips would ravish.
Unlock your cold white arms; take from my shoulder
The tangled swell of your bewildering tresses.
Let me return: the wind comes down from Ida,
And soon the galley, stirring from her slumber,
Will fret to ride where Pelion's twilight shadow
Falls o'er the towers of Jason's sea-girt city.
I am not yours: I cannot braid the lilies
In your wet hair, nor on your argent bosoms
Close my drowsed eyes to hear your rippling voices.
Hateful to me your sweet, cold, crystal being,—
Your world of watery quiet. Help, Apollo!
For I am thine: thy fire, thy beam, thy music,
Dance in my heart and flood my sense with rapture!
The joy, the warmth and passion now awaken,
Promised by thee, but erewhile calmly sleeping.
Oh, leave me, Naiads! loose your chill embraces,
Or I shall die, for mortal maidens pining. "
But still with unrelenting arms they bound him,
And still, accordant, flowed their watery voices:-
"We have thee now,- - we hold thy beauty prisoned;
Oh, come with us beneath the emerald waters!
## p. 14537 (#99) ###########################################
BAYARD TAYLOR
14537
We have no love: we have thee, rosy Hylas.
Oh, love us, who shall nevermore release thee;
Love us, whose milky arms will be thy cradle
Far down on the untroubled sands of ocean,
Where now we bear thee, clasped in our embraces. "
And slowly, slowly sank the amorous Naiads:
The boy's blue eyes, upturned, looked through the water,
Pleading for help; but Heaven's immortal Archer
Was swathed in cloud. The ripples hid his forehead,
And last, the thick bright curls a moment floated,
So warm and silky that the stream upbore them,
Closing reluctant, as he sank forever.
The sunset died behind the crags of Imbros.
Argo was tugging at her chain; for freshly
Flew the swift breeze, and leaped the restless billows.
The voice of Jason roused the dozing sailors,
And up the mast was heaved the snowy canvas.
But mighty Hêraclês, the Jove-begotten,
Unmindful stood beside the cool Scamander,
Leaning upon his club. A purple chlamys
Tossed o'er an urn was all that lay before him:
And when he called, expectant, "Hylas! Hylas! "
The empty echoes made him answer, "Hylas! "
THE SONG OF THE CAMP
IVE us a song! " the soldiers cried,
The outer trenches guarding,
When the heated guns of the camps allied
Grew weary of bombarding.
་
"G"
The dark Redan, in silent scoff,
Lay, grim and threatening, under;
And the tawny mound of the Malakoff
No longer belched its thunder.
There was a pause. A guardsman said,
"We storm the forts to-morrow:
Sing while we may,- another day
Will bring enough of sorrow. "
They lay along the battery's side,
Below the smoking cannon:
Brave hearts, from Severn and from Clyde
And from the banks of Shannon.
## p. 14538 (#100) ##########################################
14538
BAYARD TAYLOR
They sang of love, and not of fame;
Forgot was Britain's glory:
Each heart recalled a different name,
But all sang 'Annie Laurie. '
Voice after voice caught up the song,
Until its tender passion
Rose like an anthem, rich and strong,—
Their battle-eve confession.
Dear girl, her name he dared not speak;
But as the song grew louder,
Something upon the soldier's cheek
Washed off the stains of powder.
Beyond the darkening ocean burned
The bloody sunset's embers,
While the Crimean valleys learned
How English love remembers.
And once again a fire of hell
Rained on the Russian quarters,
With scream of shot, and burst of shell,
And bellowing of the mortars!
And Irish Nora's eyes are dim
For a singer, dumb and gory;
And English Mary mourns for him
Who sang of Annie Laurie.
Sleep, soldiers! still in honored rest
Your truth and valor wearing:
The bravest are the tenderest,—
The loving are the daring.
## p. 14539 (#101) ##########################################
14539
SIR HENRY TAYLOR
(1800-1886)
HE modern English drama of literary significance is too scant
to make it easy to overlook so sterling a performance as
Sir Henry Taylor's Philip Van Artevelde. ' Taylor was a
poet by deliberation and culture rather than by creative neces-
sity. But he devoted himself with a calm singleness of purpose to
literature for a long term of years; and his work was always self-
respecting, careful, and artistically acceptable. He did his share in
lending dignity to letters. His career was fortunate in allowing him
to exercise his poetic talent in quiet ease; and the solid quality and
considerable extent of his literary endeavor are to show for it. Of
course his vogue is not now what it once was. Professor Saintsbury
has pointed out that whereas he was much quoted between 1835 and
1865, he has been little quoted by the generation coming between
1865 and 1895. But this is only the common fate of all but the
greatest. Philip Van Artevelde,' Taylor's masterpiece, will remain
one of the most notable achievements in the English historical drama
of the first half of the nineteenth century. It may be added that in
the lyric snatches imbedded in his plays, he sometimes strikes a rare
note, one that sends the reader ck to Elizabethan days. These
perfect songs are few in number, but sufficient to stamp their maker
as a true poet in his degree.
Henry Taylor was born at Bishop Middleham, Durham, England,
on October 18th, 1800. He came of a family of small land-owners.
He entered the navy as a lad, and was a midshipman for some
months. But this life he did not take to; and after four years in
the storekeeper's department, he found his true place in entering
the Colonial Office. He went in as a young man of twenty-four; he
remained well-nigh a half-century, became an important figure, and
acquired property. Taylor exercised much influence in his relation
to government: a fact indicated by the offer of Under-Secretaryship of
State in 1847, which he declined, and by his being knighted in 1869.
His employment left him the leisure necessary to carry on his liter-
ary work tranquilly, as an avocation. Dramatic writing constitutes
the bulk and the best of his efforts. He began when twenty-seven
with the play 'Isaac Comnenus' (1827), which was not well received.
But seven years later, Philip Van Artevelde' won great success;
TOK
## p. 14540 (#102) ##########################################
14540
SIR HENRY TAYLOR
deservedly, since it is by far his finest production. Other dramas are
the historical 'Edwin the Fair' (1842), the romantic comedy 'The
Virgin Widow' (1850), and St. Clement's Eve' (1862).
His essays
on political and literary topics are gathered in the three volumes
'The Statesman' (1836), 'Notes from Life' (1847), and Notes from
Books' (1849). His non-dramatic verse appears in The Eve of the
Conquest, and Other Poems' (1847), and in 'A Sicilian Summer, and
Minor Poems' (1868), of which the title-piece is the already noted
'The Virgin Widow' under another name.
'Philip Van Artevelde' is a historical drama in two parts, or
two five-act plays. Its length alone would preclude its production
in a theatre; but in all respects it is a closet drama, to be read rather
than enacted upon the stage. It makes use of the fourteenth-century
Flemish struggle, in which Van Artevelde was a protagonist; the first
play carrying the leader to his height of power, the second conduct-
ing him to his downfall and death. Taylor has a feeling for char-
acter; he gets the spirit of the age, and writes vigorous blank verse,
rising at times to an incisive strength and nobility of diction which
suggests the Elizabethans. The sympathetic handling of Philip Van
Artevelde' has been explained by the fact that certain incidents in
the Fleming's career-those having to do with his love-tally with
Taylor's own subjective experiences. 'Philip Van Artevelde' is
weakest on the purely dramatic side: as a study and description
of character in an interesting historical setting, it is admirable,—a
drama that can always be read with pleasure. The lyrics it contains
show the author at his happiest in this kind.
The works of Sir Henry Taylor were published in five volumes in
1868. His very entertaining biography appeared in 1885, the Corre-
spondence following in 1888. He died on March 28th, 1886, at Bourne-
mouth, where he spent his final days in the sun of general esteem
and regard. He had attained to the good old age of nearly eighty-
six.
SONG
OWN lay in a nook my lady's brach,
And said, "My feet are sore,-
I cannot follow with the pack
A-hunting of the boar.
Do
"And though the horn sounds never so clear
With the hounds in loud uproar,
Yet I must stop and lie down here,
Because my feet are sore. "
## p. 14541 (#103) ##########################################
SIR HENRY TAYLOR
14541
The huntsman when he heard the same,
What answer did he give? —
"The dog that's lame is much to blame,
He is not fit to live. "
ARETINA'S SONG
From A Sicilian Summer›
I'M
'M A bird that's free
Of the land and sea;
I wander whither I will;
But oft on the wing
I falter and sing,
O fluttering heart, be still,
Be still,
O fluttering heart, be still!
I'm wild as the wind,
But soft and kind,
And wander whither I may;
The eyebright sighs,
And says with its eyes,
Thou wandering wind, oh stay,
Oh stay,
Thou wandering wind, oh stay!
TO H. C.
(IN REPLY)
T MAY be folly, - they are free
Who think it so, to laugh or blame,-
But single sympathies to me
Are more than fame.
The glen and not the mountain-top
I love; and though its date be brief,
I snatch the rose you send, and drop
The laurel leaf.
## p. 14542 (#104) ##########################################
14542
SIR HENRY TAYLOR
Clara-
THE FAMINE
From Philip Van Artevelde
Α'
RTEVELDE -Now render me account of what befell
Where thou hast been to-day.
Clara-
I paid a visit first to Ukenheim,
The man who whilome saved our father's life
When certain Clementists and ribald folk
Assailed him at Malines. He came last night,
And said he knew not if we owed him aught;
But if we did, a peck of oatmeal now
Would pay the debt and save more lives than one.
I went. It seemed a wealthy man's abode:
The costly drapery and good house-gear
Had, in an ordinary time, made known
That with the occupant the world went well.
By a low couch, curtained with cloth of frieze,
Sat Ukenheim, a famine-stricken man,
-
Not much is that.
With either bony fist upon his knees
And his long back upright. His eyes were fixed
And moved not, though some gentle words I spake:
Until a little urchin of a child
That called him father, crept to where he sat
And plucked him by the sleeve, and with its small
And skinny finger pointed; then he rose
And with a low obeisance, and a smile
That looked like watery moonlight on his face,
So pale and weak a smile, he bade me welcome.
I told him that a lading of wheat-flour
Was on its way; whereat, to my surprise,
His countenance fell, and he had almost wept.
Artevelde-Poor soul! and wherefore?
That I saw too soon.
He plucked aside the curtain of the couch,
And there two children's bodies lay composed.
