The Promissory Note Of heavy storage, double-navelled, fat You understand? A venison haunch, haut gout. And sprigs of anise, might one's teeth provoke 429 Bayard Taylor. THE PROMISSORY NOTE IN the lonesome latter years (Fatal years!) To the dropping of my tears Danced the mad and mystic spheres 'Neath the moon, To the dripping and the dropping of my tears. Ah, my soul is swathed in gloom, (Ulalume!) In a dim Titanic tomb, For my gaunt and gloomy soul Ponders o'er the penal scroll, O'er the parchment (not a rhyme), (Oh, the fifty!) And the days have passed, the three, Over me! And the debit and the credit are as one to him and me! 'Twas the random runes I wrote At the bottom of the note, (Wrote and freely Gave to Greeley) In the middle of the night, Danced with dim and dying fays O'er the dimeless, timeless days, Lucre of the market, was the most that I could raise! Fiends controlled it, (Let him hold it!) Devils held for me the inkstand and the pen; Now the days of grace are o'er, (Ah, Lenore!) I am but as other men; To my rare and runic rhyme, To my random, reeling rhyme, By the sands along the shore, Where the tempest whispers, "Pay him!" and I answer, "Nevermore!" CAMERADOS Bayard Taylor. EVERYWHERE, everywhere, following me; Taking me by the buttonhole, pulling off my boots, hustling me with the elbows; Sitting down with me to clams and the chowder-kettle; The Last Ride Together 431 Plunging naked at my side into the sleek, irascible surges; Soothing me with the strain that I neither permit nor pro hibit; Flocking this way and that, reverent, eager, orotund, irrepressible; Denser than sycamore leaves when the north-winds are scouring Paumanok; What can I do to restrain them? Nothing, verily nothing, Everywhere, everywhere, crying aloud for me; Crying, I hear; and I satisfy them out of my nature; And he that comes at the end of the feast shall find some thing over. Whatever they want I give; though it be something else, they Ishall have it. Drunkard, leper, Tammanyite, small-pox and cholera patient, shoddy and codfish millionnaire, And the beautiful young men, and the beautiful young women, all the same, Crowding, hundreds of thousands, cosmical multitudes, Buss me and hang on my hips and lean up to my shoulders, Everywhere listening to my yawp and glad whenever they hear it; Everywhere saying, say it, Walt, we believe it: Everywhere, everywhere. Bayard Taylor. THE LAST RIDE TOGETHER FROM HER POINT OF VIEW WHEN I had firmly answered "No," And he allowed that that was so, I really thought I should be free And that he would soberly acquiesce. I said that it would be discreet A kindly interest in his weal; In short, I said all I could but “yes.” I said what I'm accustomed to; I promised he should find in me A friend, a sister, if that might be; But he was still dissatisfied. He certainly was most polite; Except indeed for this, that he To come with him for one more last ride." A little while in doubt I stood: Extremely well worth looking at; The weather was distinctly fine. My horse, too, wanted exercise, And time, when one is riding, flies; Besides, it really seemed, you see, The only way of ridding me Of pertinacious Mr. B.; So my head I graciously incline. I won't say much of what happened next; Indeed I should have been aghast If any one had seen what passed; But nobody need ever know That, as I leaned forward to stir the fire, I was awfully glad when he let me go. Then we began to ride; my steed The Last Ride Together And at first I thought of little, save The way to escape an early grave, As the dust rose up on either side. On a brown old cob both broad and strong. I spoke of the weather to Mr. B., But he neither listened nor spoke to me. Ah! there was the corner where Mr. S. Had his horse not most opportunely shied; I hope his present young woman can. He never smiles and he never speaks; And the cob bounds on with tireless stride. 433 |