Poets of the South

n poets, Hayne, Timrod, and Lanier. They were alike victims of misfortune, and in

like what su

g need and ce

h brave and c

ge hope and

heir deathl

ull fruitage; and over and over again, when some precious hope seemed about to be realized, it

olina. The poet's grandfather belonged to the German Fusiliers of Charleston, a volunteer company organized in 1775, after the battle of Lexington, for the defense of the American colonies. In the Seminole War, the poet's father, Captain William Henry Timrod, commanded the German Fusi

tion: HEN

th delicate feelings. He had the gift of musical utterance; and the following verses from his poem, To

er thee, Ol

that thy

ter ruin f

ntonness

leaf tha

hy restl

flight, tho

and bright

*

thy progr

y a love

e brave an

aused our t

near the co

, nor we

th of thy de

l our te

oet derived his love of Nature. She delighted in flowers and trees and stars; she caught the glintings of the sunshine through the leaves; she felt a thrill of joy at the

the respect and confidence of his companions. His poetic activity dates from this period. "I well remember," says Hayne, "the exultation with which he showed me one morning his earliest consecutive attempt at verse

ersity without his degree. But his interrupted course was not in vain. His fondness for literature led him, not only to an intelligent study of Virgil, Horace, and Catullus, but also to an unusu

was timid and retiring in disposition. "His walk was quick and nervous," says Dr. J. Dickson Bruns, "with an energy in it that betokened decision of character, but ill sustained by the stammering speech; for in society he was the shyest and most undemonstr

leston, he became a tutor in private families; but on holiday occasions he was accustomed to return to the city, where he was cordially welcomed by his friends. Among these was William Gilmore Simms, a sort of Maecena

the soci

ous flood

rth, and keen

ine-foam on its

e, he became a frequent and favorite contributor to the Southern Literary Messenger of Richmond, Virginia. Later he became one of the principal c

tains most of the pieces found in subsequent editions of his works. Here and there, both North and South, a discerning critic recognized in the poet "a lively, delicate fancy, and a graceful beauty of expression." But, upon the whole, the book attrac

reflected profoundly on his art, and nursed his genius on the masterpieces of English song. In addition to Shakespeare he had carefully pondered Milton, Wo

is the light o

ocean, and t

ky, and in the

redit of setting forth a larger and juster conception of the poetic art. To beauty he adds power and truth as legitimate sources of poetry. "I think," he says, "when we recall the many and varied sources of poetry, we must, perforce, confess that it is wh

arranged as to help enforce it." He distinguished between the moment of inspiration, "when the great thought strikes for the first time along the brain and flushes the

kindle wh

at in the h

bloweth a

y our sou

hours of in

h hours of gl

h. In diction he belongs to the school of Wordsworth; his language is not strained or farfetched, but such as is natural to cultured men in a state of emotion. "Poetry," he says in an early volume of Russell's Magazine, "does not deal in abstractions. However abstract be his thought, the poe

he moment of inspiration, from the subsequent labor of composition. In the act of writing, the poet passes into the artist. And "the very restriction so much complained o

Poesy. In the experience of the imaginative hero, who seems an idealized portrait of the poet himself, we find an almost unequal

nce that imm

morning stars

een, beneath a

rld forever fr

its fruitage

with a glory

s on which this angel o

, passion, she

ngs, and gentle

hood's kiss, and

orteth with the

the breast its

ts the ground

hallow, and all

acred; at my

latest dreams, i

tasteless wa

rough and through

is fair, and he

ars, and I we

f the poet's versatile gifts-delicate fancy, simplicity and truth, lucid force, or f

e lover's

very sub

gns, and lips

modest

t the rounds of the press. It teaches the important truth that we are the sum of al

d, where joy a

each correct

hts are brighte

wholly peris

es-no more tha

like death is cl

gel, with en

r-off and cel

y, better voiced the feelings of the South at that time than those of Hayne or any other Southern singer. In his Ethnogenesis-th

e t

all be known

f which lips our

e cold, untemp

ams, that far o

catch upon the

armth and hints

, "I read them first, and was thrilled by their power and pathos, upon a stormy March evening in Fort Sumter! Walking along the battlements, under the red lights of a tempestuous sunset, the wind steadily and loudly blowing from off the bar across the tossing and moaning waste of waters, driven

a murmur

ir way through

truggling in

oli

deepens; sl

as rolling

roke upon

oli

ndon. The war correspondent of the London Illustrated News, himself an artist, volunteered to furnish original illustrations. The scheme, at which the poet was elated, promised at once bread and fame. But, as in so many other instance

retiring and sympathetic nature the scenes of war were painful. "One can scarcely conceive," says Dr. Bruns, "of a situation more hopelessly wretched than that of a mere child in

ng; and, in the cheerful prospect, he ventured to marry Miss Kate Goodwin of Charleston, "Katie, the fair Saxon," whom he had long loved and of whom he had sung in one of his longest and

pitchers, one or two dozen silver forks, several sofas, innumerable chairs, and a huge-bedstead!" He could find no paying market for his poems in the impoverished South; and in the North political feeling was still too strong to give him access to the magazines there. The only employment he could find was so

pirits often attuned to high thought and feeling, they roamed together among the pines or sat beneath the stars. "We would rest on the hillsides," says Hayne, "in the swaying golden shadows, watching together the Titanic masses of snow-white clouds which floated slowly and vaguely through t

ne whose antique

rumbling bases

eason with the dear ones about him. When, after a period of intense agony that preceded his dissolution, his sister murmured to him, "You will soon be at rest now," he replied,

od Memorial Association of South Carolina. A number of his poems and his prose writings still remain uncollected; and there is yet no biography that fully record

ot ambitious of lofty subjects, remote from the hearts and homes of men. He placed sincerity abov

stars are neare

rack the mig

hadow of a sl

ard, humili

draw from matt

nations, and as