Bob Dylan And Bayard Taylor  (Part II)

Bob Dylan and Bayard Taylor Part 1

By Larry Fyffe

With poets William Blake and Bayard Taylor, singer/songwriter/ musician Bob Dylan sails upon the misty sea in a shoe filled with rhymes.

William Blake envisions a new dawn of love rising above the ashes of the not-so-‘Enlightered’ industrial age ~ ‘gold’/’unfold’:

Bring me my bow of burning gold
Bring me my arrows of desire
Bring me my spear: O clouds unfold
Bring me my chariots of fire
(William Blake: Jerusalem)

Bayard Taylor dreams too of a happier future ~ ‘old’/’unfold’:

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 ....
With a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold
And the stars are old
And the leaves of the the Judgement Book unfold
(Bayard Taylor: Bedouin Song)

The song lyrics beneath bespeak of a cheery life ~ ‘old’/’unfolds’:

As his youth unfolds
He is centuries old ....
He's young and on fire
Full of hope and desire
(Bob Dylan: Lord Protect My Child)

 

In the following lyrics, Taylor reveals that he’s not shy about stealing Blake’s ~’fire’/’desire’ motif:

Fiercely stamp the tethered horses, as they snuff the
morning fire
Their impatient heads are tossing, and they neigh with keen desire
(Bayard Taylor: The Bison Track)

Below a bit by Bob Dylan:

I feel like I'm on fire
Nothing matters to me
And there's nothing I desire
(Bob Dylan: Nobody 'Cept You)

 

In the lines beneath, there’s the rhyme ~ ‘bright’/’night’:

They sat by the hearth-stone, broad and bright
Whose burning brands threw a cheerful light
On the frosty calm of the winter's night
(Bayard Taylor: The Voice Of The Fire)

As taken from the following lines:

Tiger, Tiger, burning bright 
In the forests of the night
(William Blake: The Tiger)

In the song lyrics below, the singer/songwriter/musician looks back, and brings the rhyme home:

We stopped into a strange hotel
With a neon sign burning bright 
He felt the heat of the night
(Bob Dylan: Simple Twist Of Fate)