"My captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will, The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done, From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won; But I, with mournful tread, Fallen cold and dead." Other poems which are to be commended are Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, The City Dead-House, Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking, considered by many his best work, and Come up from the Fields, Father. In Whitman excels when he sings of the sea. his noble poem To the Man-of-War Bird he cries: — "Thou born to match the gale (thou art all wings), To cope with heaven and earth and sea and hurricane, Days, even weeks untired and onward, through spaces, realms gyrating, At dusk that look'st on Senegal, at morn America, Character. Whitman loved nature. He delighted to roam along the seashore, by the ferry, or to mingle with men in the humblest calling, finding in their lives more than he could gain from books. He knew intimately many of the ferrymen and omnibus drivers of Brooklyn, and his poetry is expressive of his democratic spirit. He was gifted with feeling and imagination, and his tenderness was remarkable when we consider the man and his life. He had a splendid physique and a tenacious, dogged spirit, inherited from his Dutch-English ancestry. He was devoted to his friends, among whom he numbered Emerson, Longfellow, Bryant, and Whittier. When Whitman visited Boston and Concord, in 1881, he carried a stone and laid it on the cairn which marks the spot where his friend Thoreau had lived. Burroughs's Estimate." Opinion will doubtless long be divided about the value of his work. He said he was willing to wait to be understood by the growth of the taste of himself. That this taste is growing, that the new generations are coming more and more into his spirit and atmosphere, that the mountain is less and less forbidding, and looms up more and more as we get farther from it, is obvious enough. That he will ever be in any sense a popular poet is in the highest degree improbable; but that he will kindle enthusiasm in successive minds; that he will be an enormous feeder to the coming poetic genius of his country; that he will enlarge criticism and make it easy for every succeeding poet to be himself and to be American; and finally that he will take his place among the few major poets of the race, I have not the least doubt." SUGGESTIONS FOR READING Beat! Beat! Drums!; O Captain! My Captain!; When Lilacs last in the Dooryard Bloomed; Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking; Crossing Brooklyn Ferry; Come up from the Fields, Father; To the Man-of-War Bird; The City Dead-House; Pioneers, O Pioneers. HELPFUL BOOKS John Burroughs's Whitman, A Study. William Clarke's Life of Whitman. W. D. O'Connor's The Good Gray Poet, a Defence of Walt Whitman. 1825, Jan. 11. 1840-1842 1844-1846 1850 XIX. BAYARD TAYLOR CHRONOLOGY Born at Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. Pedestrian tour in Europe. Married Miss Mary Agnew. Travels in the Orient. Lecturing in the United States. Married Miss Marie Hansen. "Cedarcroft" finished. Secretary of Russian legation. Non-resident professor of German at In Germany. 1878. 1878, Dec. 19. Minister to Germany. Died in Berlin. Life. Conspicuous for his versatility among the writers in American literature is Bayard Taylor, who during his life acquired considerable fame as a traveler, novelist, poet, critic, journalist, and lecturer. He was born about thirty miles from Philadelphia, at Kennett Square, Chester County, Pennsylvania, January 11, 1825. He was descended from Robert Taylor, who came to America with William Penn. In his youth he attended the village academy, and was noted for his passionate love of poetry. He read with avidity the works of Scott, Campbell, Bryant, Longfellow, Whittier, and Lowell. He himself began to write verses at a very early age, publishing his first volume, consisting of fifteen poems, in 1844. Through the aid of N. P. Willis, whose Pencillings by the Way he had eagerly read, he was enabled to gratify his desire for travel. He sailed for Europe in July, 1844, and spent the next two years tramping on the Continent, living and dressing as the natives of whatever clime he visited. After his return to New York, he published the result of his experiences, under the title, Views Afoot, with a preface by Willis. The volume met with universal approval, and made a name for the young author. The next few years |