BAYARD TAYLOR was born on the eleventh of January, 1825, at Kennet Square, near the Brandywine, in Pennsylvania, and in that rural and classical region he lived until his departure for Europe in the summer of 1844. Having passed two years in Great Britain, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, and France, he returned to the United States, and after publishing an account of his travels, under the title of Views a-Foot," he settled in New York, where he has since been occupied as one of the editors of "The Tribune," a journal which has derived much advantage from his fine taste in literature and large knowledge of affairs.

Though not egotistical, there is scarcely an author more easily detected in his works. And this is not from any of those tricks of style in which alone consists the individuality of so many; but his sincere, frank, and enthusiastic spirit, grateful while aspiring, calm while struggling, and humble while attaining; and his life, which moves in order in the crowd and jar of society, in the solitude where Nature is seen with reverence, "up heights of rough ascent," and over streams and chasms, by shapely ways constructed by his will and knowledge. We do not remember any book of travels in which an author appears altogether so amiable and interesting as he in his " Views a-Foot." He always lingers in the background, or steps forward modestly but to solicit more earnestly our admiration for what has kindled his own: but undesignedly, or against his design even, he continually engrosses our interest, as if he were the hero of a novel; and as we pass from scene to scene with him, we think of the truth and poetry of each only to sympathize in his surprise, and joy, and wonder. BAYARD TAYLOR's first move in literature was

a small volume of poems, of which the longest, and the longest he has yet published, was upon an incident in Spanish history. This was written when he was about eighteen years of age, and my acquaintance with him commenced when he arrived in the city with his manuscripts. We read "Ximena" together; and, while negotiations were in progress for its publication, discussed the subject of Americanism in letters. I urged upon his consideration the themes I thought best adapted to the development and illustration of his genius.

Here was a young author, born and nurtured in one of the most characteristic and beautiful of our rural districts, so removed from the associations that vitiate the national feeling and manner, and altogether of a growth so indigenous, that he was one of the fittest types of our people, selecting the materials for his first production from scenes and actions which are more picturesque, more romantic, or in any way more suitable for the purposes of art, only as they have been made so by art, and

are seen through the media of art, in preference to the fresh valleys and mountains and forests, and lakes and rivers and cataracts, and high resolve, and bold adventure, and brave endurance, which have more distinctly marked, and varied, and ennobled our history than all other histories, in events crowding so fast upon each other, that our annals scem but a rehearsal of all that had been before, with years for centuries-divided by the Declaration of Independence, which is our gospel-beyond which the colonies are ancient nations, and this side of which our states have swept, with steamboats, and railroads, and telegraphs, the whole breadth of Time; and ere the startled empires are aware, are standing before them all, beckoning them to the last and best condition, which is the fulfilment of farthest-reaching prophecy. In such a choice, he had not only to enter into a competition with the greatest geniuses of the countries and ages he invaded, but, worse than this, to be a parasite of their inspiration, or to animate old forms, disciplined to a mere routine, with the new life to which he was born-sacrificing altogether his native strength, or attempting its exhibition in fetters.

Genius creates, but not like the Divine energy, from nothing. Genius creates from knowledge; and the fullness of knowledge necessary to its uses can be acquired, not from any second-hand glimpses through books, or pictures, or discourse, but from experience in the midst of its subjects, the respiration of their atmosphere, a daily contact with their forms, and a constant sympathy with their nature. This pervading intelligence gives no transient tone to the feelings, but enters into the essence of character, and becomes a part of life. He who would set aside the spirit of his age and country, to take upon himself another being, must approach his task with extraordinary powers and an indomitable will, or he will fail utterly. It is undoubtedly true that, to be American, it is not needful in all cases to select subjects which are so geographically; but this admission does not justify an indiscrimi nate use of foreign life, or a reckless invasion or assumption of foreign sentiment. There must be some relationship of condition and aspiration. Of all writers who have yet written, MILTON was the most American. All the works of CHANNING embrace less that is national to us than a page of the "Defence of the People of England;" and a library larger than that which was at Alexandria, of such books as IRVING's, would not contain as much Americanism as a paragraph of the Areopagitica." But the Genius of America was born in England, and his strength was put forth in those conflicts of the commonwealth which ended in the exile of the young Hercules. During the Cromwellian era, England offers almost as ap

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propriate a field for illustration by the American as Massachusetts under HUTCHINSON, except in the accessories of nature, which should enter into the compositions of art. Not so Spain or Russia, at the extremes of Europe, without affinities with each other or with us. There is very little in the life or nature, or past or present or future, of either of these nations, with which the American can have any real sympathy; and for an American author, whose heart keeps time with his country's, to attempt the illustration of any character from either, while his own domain, far more rich in suggestion and material, lies waste, is a thing scarcely possible to the apprehension of a common understanding. In a remote and shadowy antiquity, like that of Egypt, or in such a darkness as envelops Mexico or Peru, or our own continent before its last discovery, the case is different: we are at liberty, with conditions, to make these the scenes of our conventionalities, because there is scarcely a record to contradict the suggestions of the imagination.

Mr. TAYLOR happily went abroad just after the publication of his story of the Sierra Morena, and though he had then travelled but little in his native country, and Europe, "seen with a staff and knapsack," opened all her gates before him with circumstances to produce the most vivid and profound impressions, his love of home grew stronger, and he felt at length the truth which might never have come to him if he had remained here, that for him the holiest land for the intellect, as well as the affections, was that in which he was born. The fables of genius and the records of history may kindle the fancy and give activity to the imagination, but they cannot rouse the passions,

which must best dispose the illustrations of fancy, and can alone give vitality and attractive beauty to the fruits of a creative energy. In all his later writings the influence of the inspirations which belong to his country and his age are more and more apparent, and in his volume entitled " Rhymes of Travel, Ballads, and other Poems," published in New York in 1848, the most spirited, natural, and altogether successful compositions, are those which were suggested by the popular impulses and the peculiar adventure which have distinguished the recent life of the republic. "El Canalo," The Bison Track," and "The Fight of Paso del Mar," belong entirely to the years in which they were written, but the inspiration of which they are fruits was not more genuine than that from which we have "The Continents," "In Italy," or "The Requiem in the North."

The finest and most sustained specimens of Mr. TAYLOR'S imagination and passion are "Ariel in the Cloven Pine," and the "Ode to SHELLEY," both of which have been written since the appearance of his " Rhymes of Travel." The latter is conceived in a spirit and expressed in a sounding rhythm worthy of the sublime intelligence to whom it is addressed. His mastery of the harmonies of the English language is perhaps best exhibited, however, in some of his translations from the German and Italian, particularly in a version of his friend FREILIGRATH's splendid appeal of "The Dead to the Living," a lyric which has been historical from the day on which it first startled the Prussians, and which he reproduced for the columns of "The Tribune" in a manner worthy of the original.

A REQUIEM IN THE NORTH. SPEED Swifter, Night!-wild northern Night, Whose feet the arctic islands know, When stiffening breakers, sharp and white, Gird the complaining shores of snow. Send all thy winds to sweep the wold

And howl in mountain-passes far, And hang thy banners, red and cold, Against the shield of every star! For what have I to do with morn,

Or summer's glory in the valesWith the blithe ring of forest-horn,

Or beckoning gleam of snowy sails? Art THOU not gone, in whose blue eye The fleeting summer dawn'd to me?— Gone, like the echo of a sigh

Beside the loud, resounding sea!

Oh, brief that time of song and flowers,
Which blest, through thee, the Northern Land!

I pine amid its leafless bowers

And on the black and lonely strand.
The forest wails the starry bloom

Which yet shall pave its shadowy floor,
But down my spirit's aisles of gloom
Thy love shall blossom nevermore!

And nevermore shall battling pines
Their solemn triumph sound for me;
Nor morning fringe the mountain-lines,
Nor sunset flush the hoary sea;
But Night and Winter fill the sky
And load with frost the shivering air,
Till every gust that hurries by

Chimes wilder with my own despair!

The leaden twilight, cold and long,

Is slowly settling o'er the wave; No wandering blast awakes a song In naked boughs, above thy grave. The frozen air is still and dark;

The numb earth lies in icy rest; And all is dead save this one spark

Of burning grief, within my breast.

Life's darken'd orb shall wheel no more
To Love's rejoicing summer back;

My spirit walks a wintry shore,

With not a star to light its track. Speed swifter, Night! thy gloom and frost Are free to spoil and ravage here; This last wild requiem for the lost, I pour in thy unheeding ear!

EL CANALO.*

Now saddle El Canalo!-the freshening wind of

morn

Down in the flowery vega is stirring through the

corn;

The thin smoke of the ranches grows red with coming day,

And the steed's impatient stamping is eager for the way!

My glossy-limb'd Canalo, thy neck is curved in pride,

Thy slender ears prick'd forward, thy nostril straining wide,

And as thy quick neigh greets me, and I catch thee by the mane,

I'm off with the winds of morning-the chieftain of the plain!

I feel the swift air whirring, and see along our track,

From the flinty-paved sierra, the sparks go streaming back;

And I clutch my rifle closer, as we sweep the dark defile,

Where the red guerilla watches for many a lonely mile.

They reach not El Canalo; with the swiftness of a dream

We've pass'd the bleak Nevada, and Tule's icy stream;

But where, on sweeping gallop, my bullet backward sped,

The keen-eyed mountain vultures will circle o'er the dead!

On! on, my brave Canalo! we've dash'd the sand

The pines will sound in answer to the surges on the shore,

And in our dreams, Canalo, we'll make the journey o'er!

THE BISON-TRACK.

STRIKE the tent! the sun has risen; not a cloud has ribb'd the dawn,

And the frosted prairie brightens to the westward, far and wan:

Prime afresh the trusty rifle-sharpen well the hunting-spear

For the frozen sod is trembling, and a noise of hoofs I hear!

Fiercely stamp the tether'd horses, as they snuff the morning's fire,

And their flashing heads are tossing, with a neigh of keen desire;

Strike the tent-the saddles wait us! let the bridlereins be slack,

For the prairie's distant thunder has betray'd the bison's track!

See! a dusky line approaches; hark! the onwardsurging roar,

Like the din of wintry breakers on a sounding wall of shore !

Dust and sand behind them whirling, snort the foremost of the van,

And the stubborn horns are striking, through the crowded caravan.

Now the storm is down upon us-let the madden'd horses go!

We shall ride the living whirlwind, though a hundred leagues it blow!

Though the surgy manes should thicken, and the red eyes' angry glare

Lighten round us as we gallop through the sand and rushing air!

Myriad hoofs will scar the prairie, in our wild, resistless race,

And a sound, like mighty waters, thunder down

the desert space :

Yet the rein may not be tighten'd, nor the rider's eye look back

Death to him whose speed should slacken, on the madden'd bison's track!

Now the trampling herds are threaded, and the chase is close and warm

For the giant bull that gallops in the edges of the

storm:

Hurl your lassoes swift and fearless-swing your rifles as we run!

Ha! the dust is red behind him: shout, my brothers, he is won!

Look not on him as he staggers-'t is the last shot he will need ;

More shall fall, among his fellows, ere we run the bold stampede

Ere we stem the swarthy breakers-while the wolves, a hungry pack,

Howl around each grim-eyed carcass, on the bloody bison-track!

ODE TO SHELLEY.

WHY art thou dead? Upon the hills once more
The golden mist of waning Autumn lies;
The slow-pulsed billows wash along the shore,
And phantom isles are floating in the skies.
They wait for thee; a spirit in the sand

Hushes, expectant, for thy lingering tread; The light wind pants to lift thy trembling hair; Inward, the silent land

Lies with its mournful woods-why art thou dead, When Earth demands that thou shalt call her fair? Why art thou dead? O glorious child of Song, Whose brother spirit ever dwells with mine, Feeling, twin-doom'd, the burning hate of Wrong, And Beauty's worship, deathless and divine! Thou art afar: wilt thou not soon return, To tell me that which thou hast never toldTo grasp my throbbing hand, and by the shore Or dewy mountain-fern

Pour out thy heart as to a friend of old,
Tearful with twilight sorrow? Nevermore!

Why art thou dead? My years are full of pain,
The pain sublime of thought that has no word;
And Truth and Beauty sing within my brain
Diviner songs than men have ever heard.
Wert thou but here, thine eye might read the strife,
The solemn burthen of immortal song-
And hear the music, that can find no lyre:
For thou hast known a life

Lonely, amid the poets' mountain-throng-
Whose cloudy snows conceal'd eternal fire.
I could have told thee all the sylvan joy

Of trackless woods; the meadows, far apart,
Within whose fragrant grass, a lonely boy,
I thought of God; the trumpet at my heart,
When on bleak mountains roar'd the midnight storm,
And I was bathed in lightning, broad and grand:
Oh, more than all, with low and sacred breath
And forehead flushing warm,

I would have led thee through the summer land Of my young love, and past my dreams of Death. In thee, immortal brother! had I found

That voice of Earth for which my spirit pinesThe awful speech of Rome's sepulchral ground, The dusky hymn of Vallombrosa's pines. From thee, the noise of ocean would have taken A grand defiance round the moveless shores, And vocal grown the mountain's silent head. Canst thou not still awaken, Beneath the funeral cypress? Earth implores Thy presence for her son-why art thou dead? I do but rave-for it is better thus:

Were once thy starry heart reveal'd to mine, In the twin life which would encircle us

My soul would melt, my voice be lost in thine. Better to mask the agony of thought

That through weak human lips would make its way,

By lone endurance, such as men must learn:
The poet's soul is fraught

With mightiest speech, when loneliest the day, And fires are brightest that in midnight burn.

ARIEL IN THE CLOVEN PINE.

Now the frosty stars are gone;
I have watched them, one by one,
Fainting on the shores of dawn.
Round and full the glorious sun
Walks with level step the spray,
Through his vestibule of Day;
While the wolves that howled anon
Slink to dens and coverts 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 the 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 meadows wide, that lie
Each a green and dazzling sky,
Paved with yellow cowslip-stars,
Cloud-like, crossed by roseate bars
Of the bloomy almond woods,

And lit, like heaven, with fairest sheen
Of the sun that hangs between.
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 Earth's old veins,
Tingling with the Spring's sweet wine,
With a sharper torment pain me.
Pansies, in soft April rains
And April's sun, from Thea's lap
Fill their stalks with honeyed sap,
But the sluggish blood she brings
To the tough Pine's hundred rings,
Closer locks their cruel hold,
Closer draws the scaly bark
Round my prison, lightning-riven;
So when Winter, wild and dark,
Vexes wave and writhing wold,

And with murk vapour swathes the heaven,
I must feel the vile bat creep
In my narrow cleft, to sleep.
By this coarse and alien state
Is my dainty essence wronged:
The fine sense that erst belonged
To my nature, chafes 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 linked hands
To the ocean's yellow sands.

The primrose-bells each morning ope
In their cool, deep beds of grass;
Violets make the airs that pass
Tell-tales 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 songs 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 ruffle with foul riot
Round its shore's enchanted quiet,
Bore my wailings on the seas:
Sorrowing birds in autumn went
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 damned witch, Sycorax.

THE CONTINENTS.

I HAD a vision in that solemn hour,
Last of the year sublime,

Whose wave sweeps downward, with its dying power
Rippling the shores of Time!

On the bleak margin of that hoary sea
My spirit stood alone,

Watching the gleams of phantom History

Which through the darkness shone:

Then when the bell of midnight, ghostly hands
Toll'd for the dead year's doom,

I saw the spirits of Earth's ancient lands
Stand up amid the gloom!

The crowned deities, whose reign began

In the forgotten Past,

When first the glad world gave to sovereign Man
Her empires green and vast.

First queenly ASIA, from the fallen thrones
Of twice three thousand years,

Came with the wo a grieving goddess owns,
Who longs for mortal tears.

The dust of ruin to her mantle clung
And dimm'd her crown of gold,

While the majestic sorrows of her tongue

From Tyre to Indus roll'd:

"Mourn with me, sisters, in my realm of wo, Whose only glory streams

From its lost childhood, like the arctic glow Which sunless Winter dreams!

In the red desert moulders Babylon,

And the wild serpent's hiss Echoes in Petra's palaces of stone

And waste Persepolis!

"Gone are the deities who ruled enshrined In Elephanta's caves,

And Brahma's wailings fill the odorous wind That stirs Amboyna's waves!

The ancient gods amid their temples fall, And shapes of some near doom Trembling and waving on the Future's wall, More fearful make my gloom!"

Then from her seat, amid the palms embower'd
That shade the Lion-land,

Swart AFRICA in dusky aspect tower'd-
The fetters on her hand!

Backward she saw, from out her drear eclipse,
The mighty Theban years,

And the deep anguish of her mournful lips
Interpreted her tears:

"Wo for my children, whom your gyves have bound Through centuries of toil;

The bitter wailings of whose bondage sound
From many a stranger-soil!

Leave me but free, though the eternal sand
Be all my kingdom now-

Though the rude splendours of barbaric land
But mock my crownless brow!"

There was a sound, like sudden trumpets blown,
A ringing, as of arms,

When EUROPE rose, a stately Amazon,

Stern in her mailéd charms.
She brooded long beneath the weary bars
That chafed her soul of flame,

And like a seer, who reads the awful stars,
Her words prophetic came :

"I hear new sounds along the ancient shore,
Whose dull old monotone

Of tides, that broke on many a system hoar,
Wail'd through the ages lone!

I see a gleaming, like the crimson morn
Beneath a stormy sky,

And warning throes, my bosom long has borne,
Proclaim the struggle nigh!"

O radiant-brow'd, the latest born of Time!
How waned thy sisters old

Before the splendours of thine eye sublime,
And mien erect and bold!

Pure, as the winds of thine own forests are,

Thy brow beam'd lofty cheer,

And day's bright oriflamme, the morning star,
Flash'd on thy lifted spear.

"I bear no weight," so rang thy jubilant tones, "Of memories weird and vast

No crushing heritage of iron thrones,

Bequeath'd by some dead Past;