Explore "Bayard Taylor" by John Greenleaf Whittier on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I. "And where now, Bayard, will thy footsteps tend? " My sister asked our guest one winter's day. Smiling he answered in the Friends' sweet way Common to both: "Wherever thou shall send! What wouldst thou have me see for thee? " She laughed, Her dark eyes dancing in the wood-fire's glow "Loffoden isles, the Kilpis, and the low, Unsetting sun on Finmark's fishing-craft. " "All these and more I soon shall see for thee! " He answered cheerily: and he kept his pledge On Lapland snows, the North Cape's windy wedge, And Tromso freezing in its winter sea. He went and came. But no man knows the track Of his last journey, and he comes not back!
II. He brought us wonders of the new and old; We shared all climes with him. The Arab's tent To him its story-telling secret lent. And, pleased, we listened to the tales he told. His task, beguiled with songs that shall endure, In manly, honest thoroughness he wrought; From humble home-lays to the heights of thought Slowly he climbed, but every step was sure. How, with the generous pride that friendship hath, We, who so loved him, saw at last the crown Of civic honor on his brows pressed down, Rejoiced, and knew not that the gift was death. And now for him, whose praise in deafened ears Two nations speak, we answer but with tears!