Poets of the South

His poetry, as a whole, carries with it an atmosphere of high-bred refinement. We recognize at once fineness of fiber and of culture. It could not well be otherwi

Carolina what the Adamses and Quincys were to Massachusetts. A chivalrous uncle of the poet, Colonel Arthur P. Hayne, fought in three wars, and afterwards entered the United States Senate. Another uncle, Governor Robert Y. Hayne, was a distinguished statesman, who did not fear to cross s

ancestry. It was her hand that had the chief fashioning of the young poet's mind and heart. She transmitted to him his poetic temperament; and when his muse began its earl

earliest ver

ed in love

g boyish fa

er May-wi

t taunt my fl

s flight wi

saidst, 'grown

outsoar th

s wealthy and aristocratic circles there, was a literary group of unusual gifts. Calhoun and Legaré were there; and William Gilmore Simms, a man of

and South, the love of letters proved too strong for the practice of his profession. His literary bent, as with most of our gifted authors, manifested itself early, and even in his college days he beca

rather in the

mortal templ

king by that

h the haughtiest

through the bars

ief glimpses o

r, mysterious

that guards th

Civil War. He was one of the editors of the Southern Literary Gazette, a weekly published in his native city. Afterwards, as a result of a plan devised at one of Simms's literary dinners, Russell's Magazine, with Hayne as editor, was established, to use the language of

ered on every hand. "It may happen to be only a volume of noble poetry, full of those universal thoughts and feelings which speak, not to a particular people, but to all mankind. It is censured, at the South

ty to literary art. He disclaimed all sympathy with that sectional spirit which has sometimes lauded a work merely for geographical reasons; and in the critical reviews of his magazine he did not hes

marginal note, as his son tells us, in a copy of his first volume of verse, in which The Cataract is pronounced "the poorest piece in the volume. Boyish and bombastic! Should have been whipped for publishi

e happy. In the days of his prosperity she was an inspiration; and in the long years of poverty and sickness that came later she was his co

drearily, the som

wearily, the seab

le hand in mine-so

hath worn away it

it, wife,

, my love,

ear things

the pensi

houghts cease

ir pinions close besi

hand in mine, while

at fervent hand, tha

n honest heart, and r

Russsell's Magazine, and other periodicals in the South. The first volume appeared in 1855, and the second in 1859. These volumes were well worthy of the favorable reception they met with,

as a common vice among Southern singers before the Civil War. We may indeed perceive the influence of Tennyson in the delicacy of the craftsmanship, and the influence of Wordsworth in the deep and sympathetic t

expressing his choicest thought. It is hardly too much to claim that Hayne is the prince of American sonneteers. The late Maurice Thompson said that he could pick out twenty of Hayne's sonnets equal to almost any others in our language. I

ommon sphere of

auty; beauty

erance, and th

hue of mystic

ulling music

waters, in som

enne, and this

ss, and passion'

ntry, girt wit

heaven a moon

a fading fall

lotos-flowers,

wsy streamlets s

to sigh, and Peace

th. His principal service to the Southern cause was rendered in his martial songs, which breathe a lofty, patriotic spirit. They are remarkable at once for their dignity of manner and refinement of utterance. There is an entire absence of the fierceness that is to be found in some of Whittier's and Timrod's secti

uls and false!

no longer bre

now; how wondr

ves we witnes

sterner deeds

n, calmness, c

ule august, ou

iest hearts have

, and died smil

lood, and anguish

t, the faith-sus

arvelous prese

by knights and

ned earth's haug

on; his friends, warm and true with the fidelity which a common disaster brings, were generally as destitute and helpless as himself. Under these disheartening circumstances, rendered still more gloomy by the ruthless deeds of reconstruction, he withdrew to the pine barrens of Georgia, where, eighteen mile

, which from its

earliest and eve

hich gives us a glimpse of the quiet, ru

worldly strife,

seasons glide

missions, and

iet shores whe

ths, the one smal

ike a wood-fay'

y leaves, clou

hange at the lig

lapped in sy

ath of kings, or

ot mechanical or systematic in his poetic work, but followed the impulse of inspiration. "The poetic impulse," his son tells us, "frequently came to him so spontaneously as to demand immediate utterance, and he would turn to the fly leaf of the book in hand or on a neighboring shelf, and his pencil would soon rec

he met the hardships of poverty and bore the increasing ills of failing h

brave soul, undi

vering eye and

shadow dauntl

hostile years,

urance-const

patience free t

ines of the country were opened to him; and, as Stedman remarks, "his people regarded him with a tendernes

ion was better suited to lyric than to narrative or dramatic poetry. The latter, indeed, abounds in rare beauty of thought and expression; but somehow this luxuriance seems to retard or obscure the movement. The lyric pieces of t

orld roll

hadow, gi

umed eve a

me

amf

st quick sun

ight athwar

e, which se

iry flo

y ki

and feathe

its breath

ns, just glimm

goldenly

y qui

elcomed and praised Timrod's contributions. For the edition of Timrod's poems published in 1873, Hayne prepared a generous and beautiful memoir, in which he quoted the opinion of some Northern writers who a

nst thy might

y head;

ike the first co

t a peace

ssion died fro

gs from sti

alm he loved t

wind-ange

the uppermost b

e heard

med) far up th

ns rustli

ction, a few stanzas are given from Cloud Pictures. Th

m lengt

road blue spac

ud-groups, softl

es, fantastic, b

o'er yon airy w

l, from marvelous

guarded roof, a

archway, and

reezes to their

! above whose

ave with motio

oping in the

Orient pilgri

amels, o'er t

ds their proph

d a shoal of w

onstrous frontl

w arches of su

intered icebergs

urrents of som

of a Titan wo

t, at the same time, it is an evidence of his sincerity and truth. He did not aspire, as did some of his great Northern contemporaries, to the office of moralist, philosopher, or reformer. He was content to dwell in the quiet realm of beauty as it appears, to use the words of Margaret J. Preston, in the "aromatic freshness of the woods, the swaying incense of the cathedral- like isles of pines, the sough of dying summer winds, the glint of lonely pools, and t

oets of the South, Timrod and Lanier, he was not physically strong.

ercy, Father, st

nger awhile in the love of his

le I fain wou

nows what sou

l loves may par

eem the face o

I still would

s gifted singers have been placed above him. No biography has been written to record with fond minuteness the story of his admirable life and achievement. His writings in prose, and a few of his choicest lyrics, still remain