James Bayard Taylor: Verses about Nature

Side by side in the crowded streets,
Amid its ebb and flow,
We walked together one autumn morn;
('Twas many years ago!)

The markets blushed with fruits and flowers;
(Both Memory and Hope!)
You stopped and bought me at the stall,
A spicy cantelope.

We drained together its honeyed wine,
We cast the seeds away;
I slipped and fell on the moony rinds,
And you took me home in a dray!

The honeyed wine of your love is drained;
I limp from the fall I had;
The snow-flakes muffle the empty stall,
And everything is sad.

The sky is an inkstand, upside down,
It splashes the world with gloom;
The earth is full of skeleton bones,
And the sea is a wobbling tomb!

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!

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 burnings 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!

Not as in youth, with steps outspeeding morn,
And cheeks all bright from rapture of the way,
But in strange mood, half cheerful, half forlorn,
She comes to me to-day.

Does she forget the trysts we used to keep,
When dead leaves rustled on autumnal ground?
Or the lone garret, whence she banished sleep
With threats of silver sound?

Does she forget how shone the happy eyes
When they beheld her?--how the eager tongue
Plied its swift oar through wave-like harmonies,
To reach her where she sung?

How at her sacred feet I cast me down?
How she upraised me to her bosom fair,
And from her garland shred the first light crown
That ever pressed my hair?

Though dust is on the leaves, her breath will bring
Their freshness back: why lingers she so long?
The pulseless air is waiting for her wing,
Dumb with unuttered song.

If tender doubt delay her on the road,
Oh let her haste, to find that doubt belied!
If shame for love unworthily bestowed,
That shame shall melt in pride.

If she but smile, the crystal calm will break
In music, sweeter than it ever gave,
As when a breeze breathes o'er some sleeping lake
And laughs in every wave.

The ripples of awakened song shall die
Kissing her feet, and woo her not in vain,
Until, as once, upon her breast I lie,
Pardoned and loved again.

FORESEEN in the vision of sages,
Foretold when martyrs bled,
She was born of the longing of ages,
By the truth of the noble dead
And the faith of the living fed!
No blood in her lightest veins
Frets at remembered chains,
Nor shame of bondage has bowed her head.
In her form and features still
The unblenching Puritan will,
Cavalier honor, Huguenot grace,
The Quaker truth and sweetness,
And the strength of the danger-girdled race
Of Holland, blend in a proud completeness.
From the homes of all, where her being began,
She took what she gave to Man;
Justice, that knew no station,
Belief, as soul decreed,
Free air for aspiration,
Free force for independent deed!
She takes, but to give again,
As the sea returns the rivers in rain;
And gathers the chosen of her seed
From the hunted of every crown and creed.
Her Germany dwells by a gentler Rhine;
Her Ireland sees the old sunburst shine;
Her France pursues some dream divine;
Her Norway keeps his mountain pine;
Her Italy waits by the western brine;
And, broad-based under all,
Is planted England’s oaken-hearted mood,
As rich in fortitude
As e’er went worldward from the island-wall!
Fused in her candid light,
To one strong race all races here unite;
Tongues melt in hers, hereditary foemen
Forget their sword and slogan, kith and clan.
’T was glory, once, to be a Roman:
She makes it glory, now, to be a man!

Little one come to my knee !
Hark how the rain is pouring
Over the roof in the pitch dark night,
And the winds in the woods a-roaring

Hush,my darling, and listen,
Then pay for the story with kisses;
Father was lost in the pitch-black night
In just such a storm as this is.

High on the lonely mountain
Where the wild men watched and waited;
Wolves in the forest, and bears in the bush,
And I on my path belated.

The rain and the night together
Came down, and the wind came after,
Bending the props of the pine tree roof
And snapping many a rafter.

I crept along in the darkness,
Stunned and bruised and blinded...
Crept to a fir with thick-set boughs,
And a sheltering rock behind it.

There, from the blowing and raining,
Crouching I sought to hide me;
Something rustled,two green eyes shone,
And a wolf lay down beside me.

Little one, be not frightened;
I and the wolf together,
Side be side through the long, long night,
Hid from the awful weather.

His wet fur pressed against me;
Each of us warmed the other;
Each of us felt in the stormy dark
That beast and man was brother.

And when the falling forest
No longer crashed in warning,
Each of us went from our hiding place
Forth in the wild wet morning.

Darling, kiss me in payment...
Hark! how the wind is roaring!
Father's house is a better place
When the stormy rain is pouring.

Bayard Taylor

THE wild and windy morning is lit with lurid fire;
The thundering surf of ocean beats on the rocks of Tyre, --
Beats on the fallen columns and round the headland roars,
And hurls its foamy volume along the hollow shores,
And calls with hungry clamor, that speaks its long desire:
'Where are the ships of Tarshish, the mighty ships of Tyre?'

Within her cunning harbor, choked with invading sand,
No galleys bring their freightage, the spoils of every land,
And like a prostrate forest, when autumn gales have blown,
Her colonnades of granite lie shattered and o'erthrown;
And from the reef the pharos no longer flings its fire,
To beacon home from Tarshish the lordly ships of Tyre.

Where is thy rod of empire, once mighty on the waves, --
Thou that thyself exalted, till Kings became thy slaves?
Thou that didst speak to nations, and saw thy will obeyed, --
Whose favor made them joyful, whose anger sore afraid, --
Who laid'st thy deep foundations, and thought them strong and sure,
And boasted midst the waters, Shall I not aye endure?

Where is the wealth of ages that heaped thy princely mart?
The pomp of purple trappings; the gems of Syrian art;
The silken goats of Kedar; Sabæa's spicy store;
The tributes of the islands thy squadrons homeward bore,
When in thy gates triumphant they entered from the sea
With sound of horn and sackbut, of harp and psaltery?

Howl, howl, ye ships of Tarshish! the glory is laid waste:
There is no habitation; the mansions are defaced.
No mariners of Sidon unfurl your mighty sails;
No workmen fell the fir-trees that grow in Shenir's vales
And Bashan's oaks that boasted a thousand years of sun,
Or hew the masts of cedar on frosty Lebanon.

Rise, thou forgotten harlot! take up thy harp and sing:
Call the rebellious islands to own their ancient king:
Bare to the spray thy bosom, and with thy hair unbound,
Sit on the piles of ruins, thou throneless and discrowned!
There mix thy voice of wailing with the thunders of the sea,
And sing thy songs of sorrow, that thou remembered be!

Though silent and forgotten, yet Nature still laments
The pomp and power departed, the lost magnificence:
The hills were proud to see thee, and they are sadder now;
The sea was proud to bear thee, and wears a troubled brow,
And evermore the surges chant forth their vain desire:
'Where are the ships of Tarshish, the mighty ships of Tyre?'

NOW 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 this vestibule of Day,
While the wolves that late did howl
Slink to dens and converts foul,
Guarded by the demon owl,
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 he 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, damp and cold,
Sealing me in iron dark.

By this coarse and alien state
Is my dainty essence wronged;
Finer senses, that belonged
To my freedom, chafe at Fate,
Till the happier elves I hate,
Who in moonlight dances turn
Underneath the palmy fern,
Or in light and twinkling bands
Follow on with linkëd 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 song 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 West
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 demand witch Sycorax.

I' ve drunk Sicilia's crimson wine!
The blazing vintage pressed
From grapes on Etna's breast,
What time the mellowing autumn sun
did shine:
I ‘ve drunk the wine!
I feel its blood divine
Poured on the sluggish tide of mine,
Till, kindling slow,
Its fountains glow
With the light that swims
On their trembling brims,
And a molten sunrise floods my limbs!

What do I here?
I ‘ve drunk the wine,
And lo! the bright blue heaven is clear
Above the ocean's bluer sphere,
Seen through the long arcades of pine,
Inwoven and arched with vine!
The glades are green below;
The temple shines afar;
Above, old Etna's snow
Sparkles with many an icy star:
I see the mountain and its marble wall,
Where gleaming waters fall
And voices call,
Singing and calling
Like chorals falling
Through pearly doors of some Olympian hall,
Where Love holds bacchanal.

Sicilian wine! Sicilian wine!
Summer, and Music, and Song divine
Are thine, — all thine!
A sweet wind over the roses plays;
The wild bee hums at my languid ear;
The mute-winged moth serenely strays
On the downy atmosphere,
Like hovering Sleep, that overweighs
My lids with his shadow, yet comes not near.
Who ‘11 share with me this languor?
With me the juice of Etna sip?
Who press the goblet's lip,
Refusing mine the while with love's enchanting
anger?
Would I were young Adonis now!
With what an ardor bold
Within my arms I ‘d fold
Fair Aphrodite of Idalian mould,
And let the locks that hide her gleaming brow
Fall o'er my shoulder as she lay
With the fair swell of her immortal breast
Upon my bosom pressed,
Giving Olympian thrills to its enamored clay!

Bacchus and Pan have fled:
No heavy Satyr crushes with his tread
The verdure of the meadow ground,
But in their stead
The Nymphs are leading a bewildering round,
Vivid and light, as o'er some flowering rise
A dance of butterflies,
Their tossing hair with slender lilies crowned,
And greener ivy than o'erran
The brows of Bacchus and the reed of Pan!

I faint, I die:
The flames expire,
That made my blood a fluid fire:
Steeped in delicious weariness I lie.
O, lay me in some pearled shell,
Soft-balanced on the rippling sea,
Where sweet, cheek-kissing airs may wave
Their fresh wings over me;
Let me be wafted with the swell
Of Nereid voices; let no billow rave
To break the cool green crystal of the sea.
For I will wander free
Past the blue islands and the fading shores,
To Calpe and the far Azores,
And still beyond, and wide away,
Beneath the dazzling wings of tropic day, .
Where, on unruffled seas,
Sleep the green isles of the Hesperides.

The Triton's trumpet calls:
I hear, I wake, I rise:
The sound peals up the skies,
And mellowed Echo falls
In answer back from Heaven's cerulean walls.
Give me the lyre that Orpheus played upon,
Or bright Hyperion, —
Nay, rather come, thou of the mighty bow,
Come thou below,
Leaving thy steeds unharnessed go!
Sing as thou wilt, my voice shall dare to follow,
And I will sun me in thine awful glow,
Divine Apollo!
Then thou thy lute shalt twine
With Bacchic tendrils of the glorious vine
That gave Sicilian wine:
And henceforth when the breezes run
Over its clusters, ripening in the sun,
The leaves shall still be playing,
Unto thy lute its melody repaying,
And I, that quaff, shall evermore be free
To mount thy car and ride the heavens with thee!