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Giving a soul to her manifold features,
Lighting through paths of the primitive darkness,
The footsteps of Truth and the vision of Song.
Bayard Taylor (11 January 1825 – 19 December 1878) was an American poet, literary critic, translator, travel author, and diplomat.
In music, sweeter than it ever gave,
As when a breeze breathes o'er some sleeping lake,
And laughs in every wave.
My words are ghosts of thought.
I ride through the night alone,
Detached from the life that seemed,
And the best I have felt or known
Is less than the least I dreamed.
Your truth and valor wearing:
The bravest are the tenderest,—
The loving are the daring.
A peal from the parted heaven,
The first of seven!—
The warning, not yet the sign, of woe!
- If she but smile, the crystal calm shall break
In music, sweeter than it ever gave,
As when a breeze breathes o'er some sleeping lake,
And laughs in every wave.- "The Return of the Goddess" (1850), later published as the Preface to The Poet's Journal (1863); also in The Poetical Works of Bayard Taylor (1907), p. 103.
- Knowledge alone is the being of Nature,
Giving a soul to her manifold features,
Lighting through paths of the primitive darkness,
The footsteps of Truth and the vision of Song.- Kilimandjaro (1852), Stanza 2; later published in The Poetical Works of Bayard Taylor (1907), p. 73.
- From 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!- "Bedouin Song" (1853), in The Poetical Works of Bayard Taylor (1907), p. 69.
- They sang of love, and not of fame;
Forgot was Britain's glory;
Each heart recalled a different name,
But all sang Annie Lawrie.- "The Song of the Camp" (1856), in The Poetical Works of Bayard Taylor (1907), p. 86.
- Sleep, soldiers! still in honored rest
Your truth and valor wearing:
The bravest are the tenderest,—
The loving are the daring.- "The Song of the Camp" (1856), in The Poetical Works of Bayard Taylor (1907), p. 86.
- Peace the offspring is of Power.
- "A Thousand Years" (September 20, 1862), stanza 12; in The Poems (1866), p. 411.
- The hollows are heavy and dank
With the steam of the Goldenrods.- "The Guests of Night" (1871), st. 2, in The Poetical Works of Bayard Taylor (1907), p. 314.
- All, wherein I have part,
All that was loss or gain, Slips from the clasping heart,
Breaks from the grasping brain.Lo, what is left? I am bare
As a new-born soul, — I am naught:
My deeds are dust in air,
My words are ghosts of thought.
I ride through the night alone,
Detached from the life that seemed,
And the best I have felt or known
Is less than the least I dreamed.- The Guests of Night (1871), st. 3 - 4, in The Poetical Works of Bayard Taylor (1907), p. 314.
- Once let the Angel blow! —
A peal from the parted heaven,
The first of seven! For the time is come that was foretold
So long ago!
As the avalanche gathers, huge and cold,
From the down of the harmless snow,
The years and the ages gather and hang
Till the day when the word is spoken:
When they that dwell in the end of time
Are smitten alike for the early crime,
As the vials of wrath are broken!- "Gabriel" in The Century : A Popular Quarterly, Volume 18 (1874), p. 617.
- Yes, let the Angel blow!
A peal from the parted heaven,
The first of seven!—
The warning, not yet the sign, of woe!
That men arise
And look about them with wakened eyes,
Behold on their garments the dust and slime,
Refrain, forbear,
Accept the weight of a nobler care
And take reproach from the fallen time!- "Gabriel" in The Century : A Popular Quarterly, Volume 18 (1874), p. 617.
The Poet's Journal (1863)
Into Life from Apathy:
Life, not Death, is in the gale, —
Let the coming Doom prevail!
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