Bayard Taylor
Bayard Taylor
Bayard Taylorwas an American poet, literary critic, translator, travel author, and diplomat...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth11 January 1825
CityKennett Square, PA
CountryUnited States of America
wise men opportunity
Opportunity is rare, and a wise man will never let it go by him.
beautiful stars healing
The healing of the world is in its nameless saints. Each separate star seems nothing, but a myriad scattered stars break up the night and make it beautiful.
land purple fire
When May, with cowslip-braided locks, Walks through the land in green attire. And burns in meadow-grass the phlox His torch of purple fire: And when the punctual May arrives, With cowslip-garland on her brow, We know what once she gave our lives, And cannot give us now!
taken character giving
Fame is what you have taken, / Character's what you give; / When to this truth you waken, / Then you begin to live.
hope past night
Who thinks, at night, that morn will ever be? Who knows, far out upon the central sea, That anywhere is land? And yet, a shore Has set behind us, and will rise before: A past foretells a future...
love summer spring
Voluptuous bloom and fragrance rare The summer to its rose may bring; Far sweeter to the wooing air The hidden violet of spring. Still, still that lovely ghost appears, Too fair, too pure, to bid depart; No riper love of later years Can steal its beauty from the heart.
heart blood years
The lamp you lighted in the olden time Will show you my heart's-blood beating through the rhyme: A poet's journal, writ in fire and tears... Then slow deliverance, with the gaps of years...
prayer labor knows
Labor, you know, is prayer.
sea would-be voyages
Could one live on the sense of beauty alone, exempt from the necessity of 'creature comforts,' a sea-voyage would be delightful.
eccentricity
Eccentricity is developed monomania.
stars night moon
But who will watch my lilies, When their blossoms open white? By day the sun shall be sentry, And the moon and the stars by night!
hate spring lying
The source of each accordant strain Lies deeper than the Poet's brain. First from the people's heart must spring The passions which he learns to sing; They are the wind, the harp is he, To voice their fitful melody,-- The language of their varying fate, Their pride, grief, love, ambition, hate,-- The talisman which holds inwrought The touchstone of the listener's thought; That penetrates each vain disguise, And brings his secret to his eyes.
summer mirrors self
Departed suns their trails of splendor drew Across departed summers: whispers came From voices, long ago resolved again Into the primeval Silence, and we twain, Ghosts of our present selves, yet still the same, As in a spectral mirror wandered there.
death ashes green
Death is not rare, alas! nor burials few, And soon the grassy coverlet of God Spreads equal green above their ashes pale.