At seventeen, Bayard's schooling was over. He sketched well, and would gladly have gone to Philadelphia to study engraving; but he had no money. One poem had been published in the "Saturday Evening Post." Those only who have seen their first poem in print can experience his joy. But writing poetry would not earn him a living. He had no liking for teaching, but, as that seemed the only thing at hand, he would try to obtain a school. He did not succeed, however, and apprenticed himself for four years to a printer. He worked faithfully, using all his spare hours in reading and writing poetry.
Two years later, he walked to Philadelphia and back--thirty miles each way--to see if fifteen of his poems could not be printed in a book! His ambition evidently had not abated. Of course no publisher would take the book at his own risk. There was no way of securing its publication, therefore, but to visit his friends, and solicit them to buy copies in advance. This was a trying matter for a refined nature; but it was a necessity. He hoped thus to earn a little money for travel, and "to win a name that the person who shall be chosen to share with me the toils of life will not be ashamed to own." This "person" was Mary Agnew, whose love and that of Bayard Taylor form one of the saddest and tenderest pictures in our literature.
At last the penniless printer boy had determined to see Europe. For two years he had read every thing he could find upon travels abroad. His good mother mourned over the matter, and his acquaintances prophesied dire results from such a roving disposition. He would go again to Philadelphia, and see if the newspapers did not wish correspondence from Europe. All the editors politely declined the ardent boy's proposals. Probably he did not know that "unknown writers" are not wanted.
About to return home, "not in despair," he afterwards wrote, "but in a state of wonder as to where my funds would come from, for I felt certain they would come," the editor of the "Saturday Evening Post" offered him four dollars a letter for twelve letters,--fifty dollars,--with the promise of taking more if they were satisfactory. The "United States Gazette" made a similar offer, and, after selling a few manuscript poems which he had with him, he returned home in triumph, with a hundred and forty dollars in his pocket! "This," he says, "seemed sufficient to carry me to the end of the world."