Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, by Sherwin Cody

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Of other poems written at that time he thought better. In the preface
to his volume he says of them,--"They are faithful records of my
feelings at the time, often noted down hastily by the wayside, and
aspiring to no higher place than the memory of some pilgrim who may,
under like circumstances, look upon the same scenes. An ivy leaf from
a tower where a hero of old history may have dwelt, or the simplest
weed growing over the dust that once held a great soul, is reverently
kept for memories it inherited through the chance fortune of the
wind-sown seed; and I would fain hope that these rhymes may bear with
them a like simple claim to reception, from those who have given me their
company through the story of my wanderings."

Soon after he went to New York he began a series of Californian
ballads, which were published anonymously in the _Literary World_, and
attracted considerable attention. They appeared before he had made his
trip to California; but while on that trip he wrote still others. At
the same time he began several more ambitious poems, among them
"Hylas," and just before he set out for Egypt he had another volume of
poems ready for the press. It was entitled "A Book of Romances, Lyrics
and Songs," and was published in Boston just after he set out on his
Eastern journey. But while his volumes of travel sold edition after
edition his volumes of verse scarcely paid expenses.

The previous year, however,--1850,--he had had a bit of success which
caused him no end of annoyance. Jenny Lind had been brought to America
to sing, and her manager had offered a prize of $200 for the best song
that might be written for her. "Bayard Taylor came to me one
afternoon early in September," says Mr. R.H. Stoddard, "and confided
to me the fact that he was to be declared the winner of this perilous
prize, and that he foresaw a row. They will say it was given to me
because Putnam, who is my publisher, is one of the committee, and
because Ripley, who is my associate on the _Tribune_, is another.'"

Mr. Stoddard kindly suggested to him that if he feared the results, he
might substitute his (Stoddard's) name for the real one, and take the
money while Stoddard got the abuse. He did not choose to do this,
however, and the indignation of the seven or eight hundred
disappointed contributors was unbounded. Taylor bore their abuse well
enough, but he was heartily ashamed of the reputation which the poem
brought him.

CHAPTER XI

"POEMS OF THE ORIENT"

During the months he spent in Egypt, Syria, and Asia Minor, Bayard
Taylor wrote his "Poems of the Orient," of which Mr. Stoddard says, "I
thought, and I think so still when I read these spirited and
picturesque poems, that Bayard Taylor had captured the poetic secret
of the East as no English-writing poet but Byron had. He knew the East
as no one can possibly know it from books."

Certainly these poems of the East have a haunting ring that can never
be forgotten. What more stirring than this Bedouin love song!

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_!

Or what more grand and affectionate than this from "Hassan to his
Mare":

Come, my beauty! come, my desert darling!
On my shoulder lay thy glossy head!
Fear not, though the barley-sack be empty,
Here's the half of Hassan's scanty bread.

Thou shalt have thy share of dates, my beauty!
And thou know'st my water-skin is free;
Drink and welcome, for the wells are distant,
And my strength and safety lie in thee.

Bend thy forehead now, to take my kisses!
Lift in love thy dark and splendid eye:
Thou art glad when Hassan mounts the saddle,--
Thou art proud he owns thee: so am I.

Let the Sultan bring his boasted horses,
Prancing with their diamond-studded reins;
They, my darling, shall not match thy fleetness
When they course with thee the desert plains!

Let the Sultan bring his famous horses,
Let him bring his golden swords to me,--
Bring his slaves, his eunuchs, and his harem;
He would offer them in vain for thee.

We have seen Damascus, O my beauty!
And the splendor of the Pashas there:
What's their pomp and riches? Why, I would not
Take them for a handful of thy hair!

Another stirring poem of the East is "Tyre."

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 headlands 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?"

In his "L'Envoi" at the end of these poems, Bayard Taylor gives us a
hint of his meaning when he spoke of his "southern nature" as
distinguished from his "northern nature."

I found, among those Children of the Sun,
The cipher of my nature,--the release
Of baffled powers, which else had never won
That free fulfillment, whose reward is peace.

For not to any race or any clime
Is the complete sphere of life revealed;
He who would make his own that round sublime,
Must pitch his tent on many a distant field.

Upon his home a dawning lustre beams,
But through the world he walks to open day,
Gathering from every land the prismal gleams,
Which, when united, form the perfect ray.

CHAPTER XII

BAYARD TAYLOR'S FRIENDSHIPS

A biography of Bayard Taylor would not be complete without some
account of his friendships. He was always on the best of terms with
all living beings, and this subtle attraction of his nature was an
important part of his greatness.

In "Views Afoot" he tells of a charming little incident which is
enough in itself to make us love the man. It occurred in Florence,
Italy, where he was a stranger, a foreigner; and this makes the
incident in itself seem the more wonderful. "I know of nothing," he
writes, "that has given me a more sweet and tender delight than the
greeting of a little child, who, leaving his noisy playmates, ran
across the street to me, and taking my hand, which he could barely
clasp in both his soft little ones, looked up in my face with an
expression so winning and affectionate that I loved him at once."

We recall the girl with the tea-cakes whom he met on his first journey
while tramping across New Jersey. There was also something of human
love and fellowship in his familiarity with wild animals in Egypt. In
a free, joyous letter to his betrothed, Mary Agnew, he tells a curious
incident of a similar kind, which occurred while he was editing the
paper at Phoenixville. "On Sunday," says he, "I took [Schiller's] 'Don
Carlos' with me in our boat, and rowed myself out of sight of the
village into the solitude of the autumn woods. The sky was blue and
bright as that of Eden, and the bright trees waved over me like
gorgeous banners from the hilltops. I sat on a sunny slope and read
for hours; it was a rare enjoyment! As I moved to rise I found a
snake, which had crept up to me for warmth, and was coiled up quietly
under my arm. I was somewhat startled, but the reptile slid
noiselessly away, and I could not harm it."

A pretty story is told of Taylor by one who called on him when he was
on one of his lecture tours. He was a stranger in the house of
strangers, and no doubt as much a stranger to the cat as to any of the
people; but it did not take him long to slip into easy intercourse
with men or animals. "I had listened for some time to his intelligent
descriptions, enunciated with extreme modesty in the modulated tones
of his pleasing voice, when Tom, a large Maltese cat, entered the
room. At Mr. Taylor's invitation Tom approached him, and as he stroked
the fur of the handsome cat, a sort of magnetism seemed to be imparted
to the family pet, for he rolled over at the feet of his new-made
friend, and seemed delighted with the beginning of the interview. In
the most natural manner possible, Mr. Taylor slid off, as it were,
from the sofa on which he had been sitting, and assumed the position
of a Turk on the rug before the sofa, playing with delighted Tom in
the most buoyant manner, still continuing his conversation, but
changing the subject, for the nonce, to that of cats, and narrating
many stories respecting the weird and wise conduct of these animals,
which are at once loved and feared by the human race."

He even felt a sort of personal tenderness for the old trees on his
place at Kennett. He said that friends were telling him to cut this
tree and cut that. To him this would have been almost a sacrilege. The
trees seemed to depend on him for _protection_, and they should have
it. Writing from this country home which he had built, he says, "The
birds know me already, and I have learned to imitate the partridge and
rain-dove, so that I can lure them to me."

And Bayard Taylor was the accepted friend of nearly all the
distinguished men of letters of his time. He knew Longfellow, Lowell,
Whittier, and Holmes in Boston, and even in his early years, when he
first went to New York to work, he was able to pay them such flying
visits as he describes in the following to Mary Agnew: "Reached Boston
Sunday morning, galloped out to Cambridge, and spent the evening with
Lowell; went on Monday to the pine woods of Abingdon to report
Webster's speech, and dispatched it to the _Tribune_; got up early on
Tuesday and galloped to Brookline to see Colonel Perkins; then off in
the cars to Amesbury, and rambled over the Merrimac hills with
Whittier; then Wednesday morning to Lynn, where I stopped a while at
Helen Irving's; back in the afternoon to Cambridge, where I smoked a
cigar with Lowell, and then stayed all night at Longfellow's."

In New York his enjoyment of his friends, whom he met often and
familiarly, was of the keenest. Says Mr. R. H. Stoddard, "I recall
many nights which Bayard Taylor spent in our rooms.... Great was our
merriment; for if we did not always sink the shop, we kept it solely
for our own amusement. Fitz-James O'Brien was a frequent guest, and an
eager partaker of our merriment, which sometimes resolved itself into
the writing of burlesque poems. We sat around a table, and whenever
the whim seized us, we each wrote down themes on little pieces of
paper, and putting them into a hat or box we drew out one at random,
and then scribbled away for dear life. We put no restriction upon
ourselves: we could be grave or gay, or idiotic even; but we must be
rapid, for half the fun was in noting who first sang out, 'Finished!'"

The reader will remember Taylor's joy when a boy at receiving the
autograph of Dickens. The time was coming when he should be on terms
almost of intimacy with all the leading poets and writers of London.
"I spent two days with Tennyson in June," he writes to a literary
friend in 1857, "and you take my word for it, he is a noble fellow,
every inch of him. He is as tall as I am, with a head which Read
capitally calls that of a dilapidated Jove, long black hair, splendid
dark eyes, and a full mustache and beard. The portraits don't look a
bit like him; they are handsomer, perhaps, but haven't half the
splendid character of his face. We smoked many a pipe together, and
talked of poetry, religion, politics, and geology.... Our intercourse
was most cordial and unrestrained, and he asked me, at parting, to be
sure and visit him every time I came to England."

A similar tale might be told of his relations with Thackeray and a
score of others.

But an account of his friendships would not be complete without a
reference to Mr. Bufleb, whom he met on his journey up the Nile.
Taylor writes to his mother from Nubia: "I want to speak of the friend
from whom I have just parted, because I am very much moved by his
kindness, and the knowledge may be grateful to you. His friendship for
me is something wonderful, and it seems like a special Providence that
in Egypt, where I anticipated the want of all near sympathy and
kindness, I should find it in such abundant measure. He is a man of
totally different experience from myself: accustomed all his life to
wealth, to luxury, and to the exercise of authority. He was even
prejudiced against America and the Americans, and he confessed to me
that he was by nature stubborn and selfish. Yet few persons have ever
placed such unbounded confidence in me, or treated me with such
devotion and generosity.... For two days before our parting he could
scarcely eat or sleep, and when the time drew near he was so pale and
agitated that I almost feared to leave him. I have rarely been so
moved as when I saw a strong, proud man exhibit such an attachment for
me.... I told him all my history, and showed him the portrait I have
with me [that of Mary Agnew]. He went out of the cabin after looking
at it, and when he returned I saw that he had been weeping."

Surely, there must have been something peculiarly noble and sweet in
Bayard Taylor's nature to have drawn to him so powerfully a man of
another nation and another race. The friendship was lasting, and
Taylor spent many happy weeks at Mr. Bufleb's home in Gotha, Germany.
The latter even bought a little house and garden adjoining his own
estate, which was for the special use of his friend, and he closes the
letter which describes it by saying: "You see how I have written to
you, my dear Taylor. In spite of our long separation and remoteness
from each other, your heart I know could never tell you of any change
in my feelings and thoughts. On the contrary, this _rapport_ which we
enjoy has for me a profound meaning; whilst you were dedicating your
glorious work on Central Africa to me, I was setting in order for you
the most cherished part of my possessions."

CHAPTER XIII

LAST YEARS

With the building of Cedarcroft, and the publication of his "Poet's
Journal," Bayard Taylor's fame and fortune reached their height. The
Civil War was now on the point of breaking out. He entered into the
Northern cause with ardor, and even sold a share of _Tribune_ stock to
raise a thousand dollars with which to fit out his brother Frederick
and provide arms for his neighbors to defend their homes.

But the war put an end to his lectures, and cut off other sources of
his income. In 1862 he was appointed secretary of legation at the
court of St. Petersburg, and not long after was left there as _charge
d'affaires_. The cause of the Union had received some heavy reverses,
and France had invited England and Russia to join her in intervening
between the combatants. But, perhaps owing to Bayard Taylor's
diplomatic skill, Russia refused to take part in such an enterprise
without the express desire of the United States.

About this time, also, Taylor began to write a series of novels, in
the hope of bettering his fortunes thereby. The books brought him some
reputation, but to-day "Hannah Thurston" and "John Godfrey's Fortunes"
are seldom read.

A more important undertaking was his translation of "Faust," which was
accepted abroad as a monument of his scholarship, and remains to-day
one of the best translations into English of the great Goethe's most
famous work.

Other books of travel were written and published, and various fresh
volumes of poems. During this period of his life he produced most of
his longer descriptive and philosophic poems, such as "The Picture of
St. John," "Lars," and "Prince Deukalion"; but his songs and ballads
have proved more popular than these, though he threw into them all his
energy and ambition.

On July 4, 1876, he delivered his stately National Ode at the
Philadelphia Centennial, and the same year he returned to his desk at
the _Tribune_ office. But failing health compelled him to give up this
drudgery, and in the following year he was nominated United States
minister to Berlin. A grand banquet at which Bryant presided was given
him in New York, on April 4, the eve of his departure; but before the
year was finished he died in Berlin--December 19, 1878.

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