The Lovers’ Chronicle 11 January – solo – verse by Bayard Taylor – art by Georgios Jakobides

Dear Zazie, Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag dedicated to his muse. Follow us on twitter @cowboycoleridge. Do you tremble in solitude? I did, before I found you. Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

dream decision…
ahorseback through a desert, destination unknown, but good to be ridin’
this horse looks like the Preacher’s big grey mare, Flora Grande
gotta love dreams, no idea where this is goin’
all he knows is this is what he has been waitin’ for for a long time
a sense that years are passin’, still where he should be
then up ahead, someone waitin’ on a horse
he gets close enough to see, the beautiful redhead
she lopes up to meet him, then reins in
is it time
it is
and they ride on together

the song has to be from Dino;
“Retorna me
Cara mia ti amo
Solo tu, solo tu, solo tu, solo tu
Mio cuore”
“Fabulous, the king of cool”
certainly a different use of the word
than i envisioned back in 2013
“Oh sure, seven years before us”
otherwise known as my dark period
went from longin’ to be solo
to finally bein’ part of a duo
the only way i could, solo tu

from a desert i came to thee, solo, on verse shod with feelin’s and the past left far behind in the arms of desire, under our will we start and time hears us and i but thee with all that will be under no illusions as long as we have words and pulse

been puttin’ off
doin’ some things
that needed doin’
because, why

now i have a reason

absolutely revelin’
in this new found
reason for bein’

decidin’ to be,
to share this vision
to be half of a whole

roses never opened
for you before

now all that we want
will open for us

Pale Love, Pale Rider

from without i come
on verse shod only
with how i feel

and left behind
in desire,
under no illusion,
i cannot let that happen

who might hear the cry
of words not said, of loss
and best served in solitude

till the verse runs out
and the pulse no more

i am grown old

before the dream…

alone became
all there could be
ridin’ down the same trail
weathered, hardened,
beard mostly grey
long blonde hair
under a hat, black
as a fire-gutted citadel
pale blue eyes
fightin’ back the years

come and stand at dusk
same spot each time
turn the words loose
or they will grow
too crowded to relieve

carefully chosen, softly spoken
words, flyin’ all round then
they float, ridin’ the wind
into the shadows
that wait for night

readin’, writin’, waitin’
this vision, these voices
from the past, chasin’
light, this verse
this solitude
yearned for, for years
the longin’ once so fierce
fades in the rear view
a certain clarity
takin’ its place
and thus this…
should this vision
be shared

status

Tryin’ to git it right, not able to work out
the sense of it, She stood there,
Her rage growin’, cannot even manage
the simplest verse

You think someone
is gonna write this
for you

No, an answer, tryin’ again, hands
tremblin’ with memories

All those years, not bein’ able to work it out,
a poem so fraught, it has taken a lifetime
to write

I know I was not your blazin’ love
But you were mine
And I do not quite know
How to live with that

Solo

Long before the dream they called him Solo

Alone became all there could be
He rides down the same trail daily
Weathered, hardened, beard mostly grey
Long blonde hair under a hat, black
As a fire-gutted citadel
Pale blue eyes fightin’ back the years
Tremblin’ in solitude

He comes and stands at dusk
His spot each time the same
He has to turn his words loose
Or they will grow too crowded to relieve
Carefully chosen, softly spoken
Words, flyin’ all round him then
They float on the breeze, ridin’ the wind
Into the shadows that wait for night

In his early years,
His prime yet not in sight
Before beauty’s force he knew
Or of false delight
Or to what burden
She did her captives hold

He wondered in his solitude
And first began to read, and write
And so to praise a true desire
Love smiled to see what a disguise
He turned those words of the tale of old
And, that he might more mysteries behold,
Was set so fair a woman to his eyes,
That with her, learned the ways of love

Learned what it was to be half of a whole
No longer captive in solitude
They took their happiness
Beyond ridiculous, taste be damned
Then Fate, or the Goddess, or Magic,
Have it as you will, intervened
And the book closed with sighs
And he returned to solitude

After that, ridin’ all over the West
From Mexico to Alaska
Willin’ girls in saloons and cantinas
Gave shelter from the storms
Always searchin’ for, never findin’
What had once been held so dear
Kept movin’ on till one day
She spoke in a dream and he stopped

And so he reads and writes and waits
And rides down the same trail
Holdin’ back and chokin’ back
The long lost years and tears
And he stops where lost love lies
And reads his poems aloud,
Settin’ the words free on the wind,
And trembles in solitude

The Song of the Day is Willie Nelson‘s version of “Blues Eyes Cryin’ in the Rain” by Fred Rose. We do not own the rights to this song. No copyright infringement intended.

Today is the birthday of Bayard Taylor (Chester County, Pennsylvania; January 11, 1825 – December 19, 1878 Berlin); poet, literary critic, translator, travel author, and diplomat.

In 1849 Taylor married Mary Agnew, who died of tuberculosis the next year. That same year, Taylor won a popular competition sponsored by P. T. Barnum to write an ode for the “Swedish Nightingale”, singer Jenny Lind. His poem “Greetings to America” was set to music by Julius Benedict and performed by the singer at numerous concerts on her tour of the United States.

In October 1857, he married Maria Hansen, the daughter of the Danish/German astronomer Peter Hansen. The couple spent the following winter in Greece. In 1859 Taylor returned to the American West and lectured at San Francisco.

Verse

If she but smile, the crystal calm shall break
In music, sweeter than it ever gave,
As when a breeze breathes o’er some sleeping lake,
And laughs in every wave.
- “The Return of the Goddess” (1850), later published as the Preface to The Poet’s Journal (1863); also in The Poetical Works of Bayard Taylor (1907), p. 103.
From the Desert I come to thee
On a stallion shod with fire;
And the winds are left behind
In the speed of my desire.
Under thy window I stand,
And the midnight hears my cry:
I love thee, I love but thee,
With a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold!
- “Bedouin Song” (1853), in The Poetical Works of Bayard Taylor (1907), p. 69.
They sang of love, and not of fame;
Forgot was Britain’s glory;
Each heart recalled a different name,
But all sang Annie Lawrie.
- “The Song of the Camp” (1856), in The Poetical Works of Bayard Taylor (1907), p. 86.

All, wherein I have part,
All that was loss or gain, Slips from the clasping heart,
Breaks from the grasping brain.
Lo, what is left? I am bare
As a new-born soul, — I am naught:
My deeds are dust in air,
My words are ghosts of thought.
I ride through the night alone,
Detached from the life that seemed,
And the best I have felt or known
Is less than the least I dreamed.
- “The Guests of Night” (1871), st. 3 – 4, in The Poetical Works of Bayard Taylor (1907), p. 314.
Once let the Angel blow! —
A peal from the parted heaven,
The first of seven! For the time is come that was foretold
So long ago!
As the avalanche gathers, huge and cold,
From the down of the harmless snow,
The years and the ages gather and hang
Till the day when the word is spoken:
When they that dwell in the end of time
Are smitten alike for the early crime,
As the vials of wrath are broken!
- “Gabriel” in The Century : A Popular Quarterly, Volume 18 (1874), p. 617.
Yes, let the Angel blow!
A peal from the parted heaven,
The first of seven!—
The warning, not yet the sign, of woe!
That men arise
And look about them with wakened eyes,
Behold on their garments the dust and slime,
Refrain, forbear,
Accept the weight of a nobler care
And take reproach from the fallen time!
- “Gabriel” in The Century : A Popular Quarterly, Volume 18 (1874), p. 617.

The Poet’s Journal (1863)

Thunder-spasms the waking be
Into Life from Apathy:
Life, not Death, is in the gale, —
Let the coming Doom prevail!
- First Evening, “A Symbol”.
No visitors shall yonder valley find.
Except the spirits of the rain and wind:
Here you must bide, my friends, with me entombed
In this dim crypt, where shelved around us lie
The mummied authors.
- “Third Evening”.

And today is the birthday of Georgios Jakobides (Lesbos, Ottoman Empire 11 January 1853 – 13 December 1932 Athens); painter and one of the main representatives of the Greek artistic movement of the Munich School. He founded and was the first curator of the National Gallery of Greece in Athens.

Gallery

Daydreaming 1884

Portrait of Queen Sofia of Greece

the bouquet

spring

The Girl

Young lady from Munich

The miliner

Jakobides in his studio, photographed by Carl Teufel, 1883

thanks for stoppin’ by y’all

Mac Tag

The Lovers’ Chronicle 11 January – solo – verse by Bayard Taylor – art by Georgios Jakobides