TAURUS.

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BY J. BAYARD TAYLOR.

———

The Scorpion’s stars crawl down behind the sun,

And when he drops below the verge of day,

The glittering fangs, their fervid courses run,

Cling to his skirts and follow him away.

Then, ere the heels of flying Capricorn

Have touched the western mountain’s fading rim,

I mark, stern Taurus, through the twilight gray

The glinting of thy horn,

And sullen front uprising large and dim,

Bent to the starry hunter’s sword, at bay.

Thy hoofs, unwilling, climb the sphery vault;

Thy red eye trembles with an angry glare,

When the hounds follow, and in fierce assault

Bay through the fringes of the lion’s hair.

The stars that once were mortal in their love,

And by their love are made immortal now,

Cluster like golden bees upon thy mane,

When thou, possessed with Jove,

Bore sweet Europe’s garlands on thy brow

And stole her from the green Sicilian plain.

Type of the stubborn force that will not bend

To loftier art;—soul of defiant breath

That blindly stands and battles to the end,

Nerving resistance with the throes of death —

Majestic Taurus! when thy wrathful eye

Flamed brightest, and thy hoofs a moment stayed

Their march at Night’s meridian, I was born:

But in the western sky,

Like sweet Europa, Love’s fair star delayed,

To hang her garland on thy silver horn.

Thou giv’st that temper of enduring mould,

That slights the wayward bent of Destiny —

Such as sent forth the shaggy Jarls of old

To launch their dragons on the unknown sea:

Such as kept strong the sinews of the sword,

The proud, hot blood of battle—welcome made

The headsman’s axe, the rack, the martyr-fire,

The ignominious cord,

When but to yield, had pomps and honors laid

On heads that moulder in ignoble mire.

Night is the summer when the soul grows ripe

With Life’s full harvest: of her myriad suns,

Thou dost not gild the quiet herdsman’s pipe,

Nor royal state, that royal action shuns,

But in the noontide of thy ruddy stars

Thrive strength, and daring, and the blood whence springs

The Heraclidean seed of heroes: then

Were sundered Gaza’s bars;

Then, ’mid the smitten Hydra’s loosened rings,

His slayer rested, in the Lernean fen.

Thou sway’st the heart’s red tides, until they bear

The kindled spirit on their mounting wave,

Up to the notch of Glory; in thy glare

Age thaws his ice, and thrills beside the grave.

Not Bacchus, by his span of panthers borne,

And flushed with triumph of the purple vine,

Can give his sons so fierce a joy as thou,

When, filled with pride and scorn,

Thou mak’st relentless anger seem divine,

And all Jove’s terror clothes a mortal brow.

Thine is the subtle element that turns

To fearless act the impulse of the hour —

The secret fire, whose flash electric burns

To every source of passion and of power.

Therefore I hail thee, on thy glittering track:

Therefore I watch thee, when the night grows dark,

Slow rising, front Orion’s sword along

The starry zodiac,

And from thy mystic beam demand a spark

To warm my soul with more heroic song.