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)
*’Elightened’