Poems of Henry Timrod

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Poems of Henry Timrod

With Memoir

Contents

Introduction
The Late Judge George S. Bryan

Spring
The Cotton Boll
Pr|aeceptor Amat
The Problem
A Year's Courtship
Serenade
Youth and Manhood
Hark to the Shouting Wind
Too Long, O Spirit of Storm
The Lily Confidante
The Stream is Flowing from the West
Vox et Pr|aeterea Nihil
Madeline
A Dedication
Katie
Why Silent?
Two Portraits
La Belle Juive
An Exotic
The Rosebuds
A Mother's Wail
Our Willie
Address Delivered at the Opening of the New Theatre at Richmond
A Vision of Poesy
The Past
Dreams
The Arctic Voyager
Dramatic Fragment
The Summer Bower
A Rhapsody of a Southern Winter Night
Flower-Life
A Summer Shower
Baby's Age
The Messenger Rose
On Pressing Some Flowers
1866 -- Addressed to the Old Year
Stanzas: A Mother Gazes Upon Her Daughter, Arrayed for an Approaching Bridal.
Written in Illustration of a Tableau Vivant
Hymn Sung at an Anniversary of the Asylum of Orphans at Charleston
To a Captive Owl
Love's Logic
Second Love
Hymn Sung at the Consecration of Magnolia Cemetery, Charleston, S.C.
Hymn Sung at a Sacred Concert at Columbia, S.C.
Lines to R. L.
To Whom?
To Thee
Storm and Calm
Retirement
A Common Thought

Poems Written in War Times

Carolina
A Cry to Arms
Charleston
Ripley
Ethnogenesis
Carmen Triumphale
The Unknown Dead
The Two Armies
Christmas
Ode Sung on the Occasion of Decorating the Graves of the Confederate Dead,
at Magnolia Cemetery, Charleston, S.C., 1867

Sonnets

I "Poet! If on a Lasting Fame Be Bent"
II "Most Men Know Love But as a Part of Life"
III "Life Ever Seems as from Its Present Site"
IV "They Dub Thee Idler, Smiling Sneeringly"
V "Some Truths There Be Are Better Left Unsaid"
VI "I Scarcely Grieve, O Nature! at the Lot"
VII "Grief Dies Like Joy; the Tears Upon My Cheek"
VIII "At Last, Beloved Nature! I Have Met"
IX "I Know Not Why, But All This Weary Day"
X "Were I the Poet-Laureate of the Fairies"
XI "Which Are the Clouds, and Which the Mountains? See"
XII "What Gossamer Lures Thee Now? What Hope, What Name"
XIII "I Thank You, Kind and Best Beloved Friend"
XIV "Are These Wild Thoughts, Thus Fettered in My Rhymes"
XV In Memoriam -- Harris Simons

Poems Now First Collected

Song Composed for Washington's Birthday, and Respectfully Inscribed
to the Officers and Members of the Washington Light Infantry of Charleston,
February 22, 1859
A Bouquet
Lines: "I Stooped from Star-Bright Regions"
A Trifle
Lines: "I Saw, or Dreamed I Saw, Her Sitting Lone"
Sonnet: "If I Have Graced No Single Song of Mine"
To Rosa ----: Acrostic
Dedication

Introduction

"A true poet is one of the most precious gifts that can be bestowed
on a generation." He speaks for it and he speaks to it.
Reflecting and interpreting his age and its thoughts, feelings, and purposes,
he speaks for it; and with a love of truth, with a keener moral insight
into the universal heart of man, and with the intuition of inspiration,
he speaks to it, and through it to the world. It is thus

"The poet to the whole wide world belongs,
Even as the Teacher is the child's."

"Nor is it to the great masters alone that our homage and thankfulness
are due. Wherever a true child of song strikes his harp, we love to listen.
All that we ask is that the music be native, born of impassioned impulse
that will not be denied, heartfelt, like the lark when she soars up
to greet the morning and pours out her song by the same quivering ecstasy
that impels her flight." For though the voices be many, the oracle is one,
for "God gave the poet his song."

Such was Henry Timrod, the Southern poet. A child of nature,
his song is the voice of the Southland. Born in Charleston, S.C.,
December 8th, 1829, his life cast in the seething torrent of civil war,
his voice was also the voice of Carolina, and through her of the South,
in all the rich glad life poured out in patriotic pride into
that fatal struggle, in all the valor and endurance of that dark conflict,
in all the gloom of its disaster, and in all the sacred tenderness
that clings about its memories. He was the poet of the Lost Cause,
the finest interpreter of the feelings and traditions of the splendid heroism
of a brave people. Moreover, by his catholic spirit, his wide range,
and world-wide sympathies, he is a true American poet.

The purpose of the TIMROD MEMORIAL ASSOCIATION of his native city and State,
in undertaking this new edition of his poems, is to erect
a suitable public memorial to the poet, and also to let his own words
renew and keep his own memory in his land's literature.

The earliest edition of Timrod's poems was a small volume by Ticknor & Fields,
of Boston, in 1860, just before the Civil War. This contained only
the poems of the first eight or nine years previous, and was warmly welcomed
North and South. The "New York Tribune" then greeted this small first volume
in these words: "These poems are worthy of a wide audience,
and they form a welcome offering to the common literature of our country."

In this first volume was evinced the culture, the lively fancy,
the delicate and vigorous imagination, and the finished artistic power
of his mind, even then rejoicing in the fullness and freshness
of its creations and in the unwearied flow of its natural music.
But it fell then on the great world of letters almost unheeded,
shut out by the war cloud that soon broke upon the land,
enveloping all in darkness.

The edition of his complete poems was not issued until the South
was recovering from the ravage of war, and was entitled
"The Poems of Henry Timrod, edited with a sketch of the Poet's life
by Paul H. Hayne. E. J. Hale & Son, publishers, New York, 1873."
And immediately, in 1874, there followed a second edition of this volume,
which contained the noble series of war poems and other lyrics
written since the edition of 1860. In 1884 an illustrated edition of "Katie"
was published by Hale & Son, New York. All of these editions
were long ago exhausted by an admiring public.

The present edition contains the poems of all the former editions,
and also some earlier poems not heretofore published.

The name of Timrod has been closely identified with the history
of South Carolina for over a century. Before the Revolution,
Henry Timrod, of German birth, the founder of the family in America,
was a prominent citizen of Charleston, and the president of
that historic association, the German Friendly Society, still existing,
a century and a quarter old. We find his name first on the roll
of the German Fusiliers of Charleston, volunteers formed in May, 1775,
for the defense of the country, immediately on hearing of
the battle of Lexington. Again in the succeeding generation,
in the Seminole war and in the peril of St. Augustine,
the German Fusiliers were commanded by his son, Captain William Henry Timrod,
who was the father of the poet, and who himself published a volume of poems
in the early part of the century. He was the editor of a literary periodical
published in Charleston, to which he himself largely contributed.
He was of strong intellect and delicate feelings, and an ardent patriot.

Some of the more striking of the poems of the elder Timrod are the following.
Washington Irving said of these lines that Tom Moore had written
no finer lyric: --

To Time, the Old Traveler

They slander thee, Old Traveler,
Who say that thy delight
Is to scatter ruin, far and wide,
In thy wantonness of might:
For not a leaf that falleth
Before thy restless wings,
But in thy flight, thou changest it
To a thousand brighter things.

Thou passest o'er the battlefield
Where the dead lie stiff and stark,
Where naught is heard save the vulture's scream,
And the gaunt wolf's famished bark;
But thou hast caused the grain to spring
From the blood-enrich|\ed clay,
And the waving corn-tops seem to dance
To the rustic's merry lay.

Thou hast strewed the lordly palace
In ruins on the ground,
And the dismal screech of the owl is heard
Where the harp was wont to sound;
But the selfsame spot thou coverest
With the dwellings of the poor,
And a thousand happy hearts enjoy
What ONE usurped before.

'T is true thy progress layeth
Full many a loved one low,
And for the brave and beautiful
Thou hast caused our tears to flow;
But always near the couch of death
Nor thou, nor we can stay;
AND THE BREATH OF THY DEPARTING WINGS,
DRIES ALL OUR TEARS AWAY!

The Mocking-Bird

Nor did lack
Sweet music to the magic of the scene:
The little crimson-breasted Nonpareil
Was there, his tiny feet scarce bending down
The silken tendril that he lighted on
To pour his love notes; and in russet coat,
Most homely, like true genius bursting forth
In spite of adverse fortune, a full choir
Within himself, the merry Mock Bird sate,
Filling the air with melody; and at times,
IN THE RAPT FAVOR OF HIS SWEETEST SONG,
HIS QUIVERING FORM WOULD SPRING INTO THE SKY,
IN SPIRAL CIRCLES, AS IF HE WOULD CATCH
NEW POWERS FROM KINDRED WARBLERS IN THE CLOUDS
WHO WOULD BEND DOWN TO GREET HIM!

These lines, addressed to the poet by his father, have a pathetic interest: --

To Harry

Harry, my little blue-eyed boy,
I love to have thee playing near;
There's music in thy shouts of joy
To a fond father's ear.

I love to see the lines of mirth
Mantle thy cheek and forehead fair,
As if all pleasures of the earth
Had met to revel there;

For gazing on thee, do I sigh
That those most happy years must flee,
And thy full share of misery
Must fall in life on thee!

There is no lasting grief below,
My Harry! that flows not from guilt;
Thou canst not read my meaning now --
In after times thou wilt.

Thou'lt read it when the churchyard clay
Shall lie upon thy father's breast,
And he, though dead, will point the way
Thou shalt be always blest.

They'll tell thee this terrestrial ball,
To man for his enjoyment given,
Is but a state of sinful thrall
To keep the soul from heaven.

My boy! the verdure-crown|\ed hills,
The vales where flowers innumerous blow,
The music of ten thousand rills
Will tell thee, 't is not so.

God is no tyrant who would spread
Unnumbered dainties to the eyes,
Yet teach the hungering child to dread
That touching them he dies!

No! all can do his creatures good,
He scatters round with hand profuse --
The only precept understood,
ENJOY, BUT NOT ABUSE!

The poet's mother was the daughter of Mr. Charles Prince,
a citizen of Charleston, whose parents had come from England
just before the Revolution. Mr. Prince had married Miss French,
daughter of an officer in the Revolution, whose family were from Switzerland.
It was the influence of his mother also that helped to form
the poet's character, and his intense and passionate love of nature.
Her beautiful face and form, her purity and goodness, her delight in all
the sights and sounds of the country, her childish rapture in wood and field,
her love of flowers and trees, and all the mystery and gladness of nature,
are among the cherished memories of all her children, and vividly described
by the poet's sister.

William Henry Timrod, father of the poet, died of disease contracted in
the Florida war, and his family thereafter were in straitened circumstances.
Nevertheless, the early education of his gifted son was provided for.
Paul H. Hayne, the poet, was one of his earliest friends and schoolmates
at Charleston's best school. They sat together, and to his brother boy-poet
he first showed his earliest verses in exulting confidence.
This friendship and confidence lasted through life, and Hayne has tenderly
embalmed it in his sketch of the poet. We have this faithful picture of him
at that time: --

"Modest and diffident, with a nervous utterance, but with melody
ever in his heart and on his lip. Though always slow of speech,
he was yet, like Burns, quick to learn. The chariot wheels
might jar in the gate through which he tried to drive his winged steeds,
but the horses were of celestial temper and the car purest gold."

His school-fellows remember him as silent and shy, full of quick impulse,
and with an eager ambition, insatiable in his thirst for books,
yet mingling freely in all sports, and rejoicing unspeakably
in the weekly holiday and its long rambles through wood and field.
"The sweet security of streets" had no charm for him. He rejoiced in Nature
and her changing scenes and seasons. She was always to him comfort,
refreshment, balm. She never turned her face from him,
and through all his years he "leaned on her breast with loving trustfulness
as a little child."

But he had other teachers. He studied all classic literature.
"The |Aeschylean drama had no attraction for him; he reveled in
the rich and elegant strains of Virgil, and of the many toned lyre of Horace
and the silver lute of Catullus." From the full and inexhaustible fountain
of English letters he drank unceasingly. Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton,
Burns, Wordsworth, and, later, Tennyson were his immediate inspiration.

His college life at the University of Georgia was interrupted by sickness
and cramped by lack of means, and his literary plans were foiled by necessity.
Nevertheless, he left his Alma Mater with a mind stirred to its depths,
and with a large store of learning, and had already sounded with clear note
those chords which were afterwards so vocal in melody.

Dr. J. Dickson Bruns has left this graphic description of Timrod's
personal appearance, and of some prominent traits of his social character: --

"In stature," he says, "Timrod was far below the medium height.
He had always excelled in boyish sports, and, as he grew to manhood,
his unusual breadth of shoulder still seemed to indicate a physical vigor
which the slender wrists, thin, transparent hands, and habitually lax attitude
but too plainly contradicted.

"The square jaw was almost stern in its strongly pronounced lines,
the mouth large, the lips exquisitely sensitive, the gray eyes set deeply
under massive brows, and full of a melancholy and pleading tenderness,
which attracted attention to his face at once, as the face of one
who had thought and suffered much.

"His walk was quick and nervous, 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 undemonstrative of men.
To a single friend whom he trusted, he would pour out his inmost heart;
but let two or three be gathered together, above all, introduce a stranger,
and he instantly became a quiet, unobtrusive listener,
though never a moody or uncongenial one!

"Among men of letters, he was always esteemed as a most sympathetic companion;
timid, reserved, unready, if taken by surprise, but highly cultivated,
and still more highly endowed.

"The key to his social character was to be found in the feminine gentleness
of his temperament. He shrank from noisy debate, and the wordy
clash of argument, as from a blow. It stunned and bewildered him,
and left him, in the m|^el|/ee, alike incapable of defense or attack.
And yet, when some burly protagonist would thrust himself too rudely into
the ring, and try to bear down opposition by sheer vehemence of declamation,
from the corner where he sat ensconced in unregarded silence,
HE WOULD SUDDENLY SLING OUT SOME SHARP, SWIFT PEBBLE OF THOUGHT,
which he had been slowly rounding, and smite with an aim so keen and true
as rarely failed to bring down the boastful Anakim!"

In Charleston, as a first effort in life, for a brief period Timrod attempted
the law, but found that jealous mistress unsuited to his life work,
though he had all the opportunity afforded him in the office of his friend,
the Hon. J. L. Petigru, the great jurist. Leaving the bar,
he thenceforward devoted himself to literature and to his art.

Charleston to Timrod was home, and he always returned with kindling spirit
to the city of his love. There were all his happiest associations
and the delight of purest friendships, -- W. Gilmore Simms and Paul Hayne,
and the rest of the literary coterie that presided over "Russell's Magazine",
and Judge Bryan and Dr. Bruns (to whom Hayne dedicated
his edition of Timrod's poems), and others were of this glad fellowship,
and his social hours were bright in their intercourse and in
the cordial appreciation of his genius and the tender love they bore him.
These he never forgot, and returning after the ravage of war
to his impoverished and suffering city, he writes, in the last year
of his young life, "My eyes were blind to everything and everybody
but a few old friends."

Suited by endowment and prepared by special study for a professorship,
still all his efforts for the academic chair failed,
and, finally, he was compelled to become a private teacher,
an office the sacredness of which he profoundly realized.
In his leisure hours he now gave himself up to deeper study of nature,
literature, and man. It was in these few years of quiet retreat
that he wrote the poems contained in the first edition of his works, 1859-60,
which, laden with all the poet's longing to be heard, were little heeded
in the first great shock of war. Indeed, in such a storm, what shelter
could a poet find? An ardent Carolinian, devoted to his native State
with an allegiance as to his country, he left his books and study,
and threw himself into the struggle, a volunteer in the army.
In the first years of the war he was in and near Charleston, and wrote
those memorable poems and martial lyrics: "Carolina", "A Cry to Arms",
"Charleston", "Ripley", "Ethnogenesis", and "The Cotton Boll",
which deeply stirred the heart of his State, and, indeed, of the whole South.
His was the voice of his people. Under its spell the public response
was quick, and promised largest honor and world-wide fame for the poet.
The project formed by some of the most eminent men of the State, late in 1862,
was to publish an illustrated and highly embellished edition of his works
in London. The war correspondent of the "London Illustrated News", Vizitelly,
himself an artist, promised original illustrations, and the future seemed
bright for the gratification of his heart's desire, to be known and heard in
the great literary centre of the English-speaking world. But disappointment
again was his lot. Amid the increasing stress of the conflict,
every public and private energy in the South was absorbed in maintaining
the ever weakening struggle; and with all art and literature and learning
our poet's hopes were buried in the common grave of war;
not because he was not loved and cherished, and his genius appreciated,
but because a terrible need was upon his people, and desperate issues
were draining their life-blood. Then he went to the front.
Too weak for the field (for the fatal weakness that finally sapped his life
was then upon him), he was compelled, under medical direction,
to retire from the battle ranks, and made a last desperate effort
to serve the cause he loved as a war correspondent. In this capacity
he joined the great army of the West after the battle of Shiloh.
The story of his camp life was indeed pathetic. Dr. Bruns writes of him then:
"One can scarcely conceive of a situation more hopelessly wretched
than that of a mere child in the world's ways suddenly flung down
into the heart of that strong retreat, and tossed like a straw
on the crest of those refluent waves from which he escaped as by a miracle."
Home he came, baffled, dispirited, and sore hurt, to receive the succor
of generous friendship, and for a brief time a safe congenial refuge,
in 1864, in an editor's chair of the "South Carolinian",
at the capital of his native State. Here his strong pen wrote
the stirring editorials of that critical time, and there,
tempted by the passing hour of comparative calm, he married Miss Kate Goodwin,
"Katie, the fair Saxon" of his exquisite song. Here the war
that had broken all his plans, and wrecked his health and hopes,
and made literature for a time in the South a beggar's vocation,
left him with wife and child, the "darling Willie" of his verse,
dependent upon his already sapped and fast failing strength for support.
Here he saw the capital of his native State, marked for vengeance,
pitilessly destroyed by fire and sword. Here gaunt ruin stalked
and want entered his own home, made desolate as all the hearthstones
of his people. Here the peace that ensued was the peace of the desert!
Here the army, defeated and broken, came back after the long heroic struggle
to blackened chimneys, sole vestige of home, and the South,
with not even bread for her famished children, still stood in solemn silence
by those deeper furrows watered with blood. The suffering that he endured
was the common suffering of those around him, -- actual physical want
and lack of the commonest comforts of life, felt most keenly
by his sensitive nature and delicate constitution. In the midst of
this fierce stress, his darling boy, the crown of his life, died.
All his affections, it seemed, were poured out at once,
as water spilled upon the ground. He was dying of consumption,
and earth shadows crowded around him.

Though long in feeble health, his last illness was brief.
The best physicians lovingly gave their skillful ministration,
and the State's most eminent men, in their common need, tenderly cared
for him and his. With death before him, he clung passionately to his art,
absorbed in that alone and in the great Beyond. His latest occupation
was correcting the proof-sheets of his own poems, and he passed away
with them by his side, stained with his life-blood.

In the autumn of 1867 he was laid by his beloved child
in Trinity churchyard, Columbia, S.C. General Hampton, Governor Thompson,
and other great Carolinians bore him to the grave, --
a grave that, through the sackcloth of the Reconstruction period
in South Carolina, remained without a stone. But as he himself
wrote of the host of the Southern dead of the war, --

"In seeds of laurel in the earth
The blossom of your fame is blown,
And somewhere waiting for its birth,
The shaft is in the stone."

In later years loving friends reared a small memorial shaft to mark his grave.
It was in that dark period that Carl McKinley's genius was touched
to these fine lines.

At Timrod's Grave. 1877.

Harp of the South! no more, no more
Thy silvery strings shall quiver,
The one strong hand might win thy strains
Is chilled and stilled forever.

Our one sweet singer breaks no more
The silence sad and long,
The land is hushed from shore to shore,
It brooks no feebler song!

No other voice can charm our ears,
None other soothe our pain;
Better these echoes lingering yet,
Than any ruder strain.

For singing, Fate has given sighs,
For music we make moan;
Oh, who may touch the harp-strings since
That whisper -- "HE IS GONE!"

See where he lies -- his last sad home
Of all memorial bare,
Save for a little heap of leaves
The winds have gathered there!

One fair frail shell from some far sea
Lies lone above his breast,
Sad emblem and sole epitaph
To mark his place of rest.

The sweet winds murmur in its heart
A music soft and low,
As they would bring their secrets still
To him who sleeps below.

And lo! one tender, tearful bloom
Wins upward through the grass,
As some sweet thought he left unsung
Were blossoming at last.

Wild weeds grow rank about the place,
A dark, cold spot, and drear;
The dull neglect that marked his life
Has followed even here.

Around shine many a marble shaft
And polished pillars fair,
And strangers stand on Timrod's grave
To praise them, unaware!

"Hold up the glories of thy dead!"
To thine own self be true,
Land that he loved! Come, honor now
This grave that honors you!

The one characteristic above all others that marked the poet's life
was his unfaltering trust, -- the soul's unclouded sky,
a quenchless radiance of blessed sunlight amid the deep darkness
that encompassed him.

As in his poetry there is no false note, no doubtful sentiment,
no selfish grief, even when he sings with breast against the thorn,
so in his life do we find no word of bitterness or moaning or complaining.
Even amid the terrible blight of war and its final utter ruin, prophet-like,
he speaks in faith and hope and courage. His own heart breaking,
and life ebbing, he writes of Spring as the true Reconstructionist,
and pleads her message to his stricken people. It is so true and prophetic
that we quote the words written in April, 1866.

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