Personal Poems, Complete






BAYARD TAYLOR.

     I.
     "And where now, Bayard, will thy footsteps tend?"
     My sister asked our guest one winter's day.
     Smiling he answered in the Friends' sweet way
     Common to both: "Wherever thou shall send!
     What wouldst thou have me see for thee?" She laughed,
     Her dark eyes dancing in the wood-fire's glow
     "Loffoden isles, the Kilpis, and the low,
     Unsetting sun on Finmark's fishing-craft."
     "All these and more I soon shall see for thee!"
     He answered cheerily: and he kept his pledge
     On Lapland snows, the North Cape's windy wedge,
     And Tromso freezing in its winter sea.
     He went and came. But no man knows the  track
     Of his last journey, and he comes not back!

     II.
     He brought us wonders of the new and old;
     We shared all climes with him. The Arab's tent
     To him its story-telling secret lent.
     And, pleased, we listened to the tales he told.
     His task, beguiled with songs that shall endure,
     In manly, honest thoroughness he wrought;
     From humble home-lays to the heights of thought
     Slowly he climbed, but every step was sure.
     How, with the generous pride that friendship hath,
     We, who so loved him, saw at last the crown
     Of civic honor on his brows pressed down,
     Rejoiced, and knew not that the gift was death.
     And now for him, whose praise in deafened ears
     Two nations speak, we answer but with tears!

     III.
     O Vale of Chester! trod by him so oft,
     Green as thy June turf keep his memory. Let
     Nor wood, nor dell, nor storied stream forget,
     Nor winds that blow round lonely Cedarcroft;
     Let the home voices greet him in the far,
     Strange land that holds him; let the messages
     Of love pursue him o'er the chartless seas
     And unmapped vastness of his unknown star
     Love's language, heard beyond the loud discourse
     Of perishable fame, in every sphere
     Itself interprets; and its utterance here
     Somewhere in God's unfolding universe
     Shall reach our traveller, softening the surprise
     Of his rapt gaze on unfamiliar skies!

     1879.

OUR AUTOCRAT.

Read at the breakfast given in honor of Dr. Holmes by the publishers of the Atlantic Monthly, December 3, 1879.

     His laurels fresh from song and lay,
     Romance, art, science, rich in all,
     And young of heart, how dare we say
     We keep his seventieth festival?

     No sense is here of loss or lack;
     Before his sweetness and his light
     The dial holds its shadow back,
     The charmed hours delay their flight.

     His still the keen analysis
     Of men and moods, electric wit,
     Free play of mirth, and tenderness
     To heal the slightest wound from it.

     And his the pathos touching all
     Life's sins and sorrows and regrets,
     Its hopes and fears, its final call
     And rest beneath the violets.

     His sparkling surface scarce betrays
     The thoughtful tide beneath it rolled,
     The wisdom of the latter days,
     And tender memories of the old.

     What shapes and fancies, grave or gay,
     Before us at his bidding come
     The Treadmill tramp, the One-Horse Shay,
     The dumb despair of Elsie's doom!

     The tale of Avis and the Maid,
     The plea for lips that cannot speak,
     The holy kiss that Iris laid
     On Little Boston's pallid cheek!

     Long may he live to sing for us
     His sweetest songs at evening time,
     And, like his Chambered Nautilus,
     To holier heights of beauty climb,

     Though now unnumbered guests surround
     The table that he rules at will,
     Its Autocrat, however crowned,
     Is but our friend and comrade still.

     The world may keep his honored name,
     The wealth of all his varied powers;
     A stronger claim has love than fame,
     And he himself is only ours!

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