REPRESENTATIVE 
 SOUTHERN POETS 
 
 GHARLES-W-HUBNER 
 
3). 
 
 D: B: FIELDS 
 Private Librarv 
 
 MAR 1 2 1909 
 
REPRESENTATIVE SOUTHERN 
 POETS 
 
Representative 
 
 Southern 
 
 Poets 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES W. HUBNER 
 
 Author of "Historical Souvenirs of Luther," "Modern 
 
 Communism," " Poems and Essays," 
 
 "War <Poets of the South" 
 
 NEW YORK AND WASHINGTON 
 THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 J906 
 
Copyright, J906 
 By The Neale Publishing Company 
 

 ACKNOWLEDGMENT 
 
 Permission to quote copyrighted poems in 
 this volume was courteously granted by the fol 
 lowing publishers: Charles Scribner s Sons, 
 New York; B. F. Johnson Publishing Com 
 pany, Richmond, Va. ; P. F. Kennedy, New 
 York; Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston; Mrs. 
 Janey Hope Marr, Lexington, Va. ; Mrs. R. N. 
 Ticknor, Columbus, Ga. The author also grate 
 fully acknowledges special courtesies received 
 from Mrs. Sidney Lanier, Mrs. Janey Hope 
 Marr, Mr. Clifford Lanier, Mr. William H. 
 Hayne, Dr. George J. Preston, and Mr. Joel 
 Benton, Poughkeepsie, N. Y., author of "In the 
 
 Poe Circle." 
 
 C. W. H. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Sidney Lanier 15 
 
 Paul Hamilton Hayne 55 
 
 Henry Timrod 83 
 
 Abram Joseph Ryan 106 
 
 James Barron Hope 120 
 
 Francis Orrery Ticknor 136 
 
 Margaret Junkin Preston 148 
 
 Edward Coate Pinkney 166 
 
 Thomas Holley Olivers 177 
 
 Poe and Some of His Critics 194 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 -. SB. Sudd*, Jli 
 
 PORTRAITS FACING PAGES 
 
 Sidney Lanier !5 
 
 Paul Hamilton Hayne 55 
 
 Henry Timrod 83 
 
 Abram Joseph Ryan 106 
 
 James Barren Hope 120 
 
 Margaret Junkin Preston 148 
 
 Thomas Holley Chivers 177 
 
 Edgar Allan Poe 194 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 ! 
 
 To the scholarly and philosophic mind of Dr. 
 Samuel Johnson we owe the wise saying that 
 "the chief glory of every people arises from its 
 authors." Of course he meant authors whose 
 works represent, and are genuine and direct 
 forces in, the development and conservation of 
 ethical and intellectual virtues in the world ; he 
 referred to writers who help civilization in the 
 achievement of whatever is best, truest, and 
 most beautiful that the hand of man can give 
 form to, or the soul can reach and transmute 
 out of the Ideal into the Real. 
 
 Nothing can be of higher value or worthier 
 of praise and admiration than the power and 
 majesty of thought, vitalized by wisdom from 
 heavenly sources and glowing with the inspira 
 tion of genius. 
 
 Thoughts, finding expression in words ar 
 ranged in harmonious order, embellished with 
 the graces of language, and permanently em 
 bodied in the form of books, are things that do 
 not die. They transmit themselves from age 
 to age, and posterity prizes them as a heritage of 
 inestimable worth. 
 
12 . Introductory 
 
 "Books," says Mrs. Browning, "are 
 
 "The only men 
 That speak aloud for future times to hear." 
 
 To the poets of a people, representing, as 
 they do, the Queen of the Muses, and artists 
 whose work embodies the highest possible man 
 ifestations of the powers of the human intellect, 
 special honor should be given for their contri 
 butions to what constitutes, as Dr. Johnson 
 has said, the chief glory of a people. 
 
 In the matter of literary achievements Amer 
 icans have good reason to feel proud of their 
 standing among modern nations. The best 
 works of our poets have received the seal of 
 the world s recognition and admiration, and a 
 permanent place has been set aside for them in 
 the world s literature. 
 
 Without catering to local or sectional feel 
 ings, we of the South can claim a large share 
 of this general recognition and praise in behalf 
 of our own poets and song-writers. Our galaxy 
 of poets is, comparatively speaking, small in 
 point of number, but the light it sheds is not 
 inferior, in the matter of brilliancy, to the larger 
 galaxies of the North or of England. Let us 
 twine the laurel garland around the names of 
 our native singers, nor be afraid of incurring 
 thereby the deprecatory censure of critics, native 
 or foreign. 
 
Introductory 13 
 
 We should make it our duty to study the 
 lives and works of these poets of the South; 
 get into intellectual touch with them; feel the 
 influence of their inspirations, and thus place 
 ourselves in a position to speak intelligently of 
 them, and honor them properly because of our 
 knowledge of them and their works. This 
 purpose has animated me in the following work, 
 and if it shall attain even a very moderate suc 
 cess in this direction, the author will feel him 
 self amply rewarded for his labor. 
 
FACING PAGE 15 
 
SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 You hold a prism to your uplifted eye, 
 
 And let the Sun-god s lances pierce it through, 
 
 Sudden what splendors are revealed to you, 
 
 What wondrous blending colors you descry, 
 
 And scores of rainbows seem to span the sky ! 
 
 The common things of earth fade from the view, 
 
 A world, in Eden glory robed anew 
 
 By God s own hand before you seems to lie ; 
 
 To me this types the glorifying powers 
 
 Of thy pure verse, O crystal-souled Lanier ! 
 
 Thy pen for Truth did holy warfare wage, 
 
 Ithuriel s spear it was, but wreathed with flowers; 
 
 Thy virgin muse recalls Art s golden age, 
 
 Its music in thy classic song we hear. 
 
 Sidney Lanier was born in Macon, Georgia, 
 on the third day of February, 1842. On his 
 father s side he was of French and on his 
 mother s of Scotch descent. His father was a 
 prominent lawyer, a man of fine ability and 
 excellent character. The poet s mother was a 
 woman remarkable for her many accomplish 
 ments, her strong character, and her refined and 
 amiable disposition. Through a long line of 
 distinguished ancestors we find fruiting and 
 flowering in the poet the commingling elements 
 of two of the noblest races on earth ; the grace, 
 the chivalry, the refinement, the brilliancy of 
 
16 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 the French, combining with the sturdy inde 
 pendence, the deep spirituality, the clear sense 
 and stern patriotism of the Scotch. 
 
 At a very early age the boy developed a pas 
 sionate fondness for music, and learned to play 
 several instruments. As his predominating 
 musical gift constitutes such an important ele 
 ment of Lanier s artistic nature, it is interesting 
 to trace this peculiar development to its distant 
 hereditary source. It was transmitted to him 
 from an ancestry distinguished for genius in 
 music. One of his ancestors, Jerome Lanier, 
 a Huguenot refugee, was a composer of music 
 at the court of Queen Elizabeth, and successive 
 Laniers were prominent musicians at the courts 
 of James I, Charles I, and Charles II. A recent 
 reviewer of Lanier s poetry very aptly empha 
 sizes the fact of hereditary transmission of 
 artistic genius, as illustrated in Lanier s case ; he 
 says that there can be few more romantic in 
 stances of the transmission of tastes and faculty 
 than this reincarnation of Stuart music in a boy 
 born at Macon, Georgia, in 1842. 
 
 While, as already stated, Lanier was skilful 
 on several musical instruments, he devoted him 
 self finally to the flute, his father having ex 
 pressed a wish to that effect; his father was 
 afraid of the fascination which the violin had 
 for his son. Other relatives and friends were 
 likewise somewhat alarmed at the young man s 
 profound passion for music, the exercise of 
 
Sidney Lanier 17 
 
 which induced a kind of ecstasy or trance, and 
 the reaction from which was accompanied by 
 great nervous exhaustion. Referring to this a 
 recent writer says, "That ecstasy so feared by 
 his friends, is the very quality of highest value 
 in Lanier s poetry." He was a master of the 
 flute, through it he voiced the otherwise unutter 
 able inspirations of his soul ; it was the voice of 
 the nightingale that lived in his heart, and the 
 expression of his face while playing was one of 
 intense rapture, as if he were listening to the 
 songs of angels. 
 
 When fourteen years old he entered Ogle- 
 thorpe College, at Midway, Georgia, and he 
 graduated with honor at eighteen. While at 
 college young Lanier was greatly troubled in 
 mind as to what his life-work should be. 
 Although passionately fond of music, which held 
 him in its thrall a willing captive, and notwith 
 standing the fact that he felt himself competent 
 to become a distinguished player and composer, 
 yet he could not bring himself to believe that 
 he was born to be a musician, "because," as he 
 says, "it seems so small a business in compari 
 son with other things which it seems to me I 
 might do." So music and poetry struggled in 
 his young breast for the mastery, poetry finally 
 gaining the victory, by consenting to concede 
 to her lovely opponent the right to divide the 
 divine afflatus between them. Consequently 
 Lanier s verse was inspired by a double power 
 music and poetry as it should be. 
 
18 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 The fact has not been so prominently set 
 forth in the various biographies of the poet as 
 it deserves to be, that he was famous while in 
 college for his excellence in mathematics. He 
 was a master in this abstruse science. His 
 logical and imaginative faculties developed 
 themselves in beautiful harmony. In him the 
 poet and the philosopher found their natural 
 affinity. 
 
 It is also related of him that while in college 
 he was the soul of good nature, jovial and viva 
 cious, a favorite among his mates, who loved 
 and admired him on account of his cheerful 
 disposition and his modest and unassuming 
 bearing. 
 
 When he had graduated he became a teacher 
 in this college, remaining there until the be 
 ginning of the war between the States. In 
 April, 1 86 1, he entered the Confederate Army 
 as a private, and served to the close of the war. 
 After the battle of Malvern Hill he was trans 
 ferred to the Signal Service, and while in charge 
 of a vessel that ran the blockade he was captured 
 and imprisoned at Point Lookout. Finally, 
 having suffered the hardships of prison life for 
 more than five months, he was exchanged. He 
 refers to his experiences in the army in his 
 novel entitled "Tiger Lilies," published in 1867. 
 For some time after the war he was employed 
 as a clerk in a hotel in Montgomery, Alabama, 
 and then took charge of a small academy at 
 
Sidney Lanier 19 
 
 Prattville, in the same State. In December, 
 1867, he married Miss Mary Day, of Macon, 
 Georgia. 
 
 In January, 1868, symptoms of consumption 
 the dreadful disease from the effects of 
 which he died September 7, 1881 manifested 
 themselves in serious form, and he moved to 
 Macon. He remained in his native city, 
 studying and practicing law with his father, 
 until 1872. In that year he went to San An 
 tonio, Texas, for the benefit of his health, 
 remaining in that delightful climate for some 
 time. In the autumn of 1873 ne became a resi 
 dent of Baltimore, Maryland, having accepted 
 an engagement to play in the Peabody Sym 
 phony Concerts. But his health did not im 
 prove, although he made frequent trips to 
 various parts of the country, hoping that change 
 of climate would benefit him. 
 
 In the following year his masterly poem 
 entitled "Corn" appeared in the Lippincott 
 Magazine. It is a thoughtful and beautiful 
 poem. Out of this simple and apparently com 
 monplace subject, which one would scarcely 
 imagine to be fit for poetic inspiration, the 
 genius of Lanier has made a perfect and pre 
 cious thing. A few extracts will suffice to indi 
 cate the grace and power of this poem. Wander 
 ing to the zig-zag cornered fence, to look out 
 
20 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 upon the "army of the corn" beyond, the poet s 
 eyes take in harvests of 
 
 "inward dignities, 
 And large benignities and insights wise" ; 
 
 he sees and describes how 
 
 "one tall captain stands 
 Advanced beyond the foremost of his bands," 
 
 and who 
 
 "waves his blades upon the very edge 
 And hottest thicket of the battling hedge." 
 
 This lustrous stalk the poet addresses as fol 
 lows : 
 
 "Thou shalt type the poet s soul sublime, 
 That leads the vanward of his timid time, 
 And sings up cowards with commanding rhyme 
 Soul-calm, like thee, yet fain, like thee, to grow 
 By double increment, above, below ; 
 Soul-homely as thou art, yet rich in grace, like thee 
 Teaching the yeomen selfless chivalry, 
 That moves in gentle curves of courtesy ; 
 Soul-filled, like thy long veins, with sweetness tense, 
 
 By every god-like sense 
 Transmuted from the four wild elements, 
 
 Drawn to high plans, 
 
 Thou lif st more stature than a mortal man s, 
 Yet ever piercest downward in the mould, 
 
 And keepest hold 
 Upon the reverent and steadfast earth, 
 
 That gave thee birth. 
 Yea, standest smiling in thy very grave, 
 
 Serene and brave, 
 
 With unremitting breath 
 
 Inhaling life from death, 
 Thine epitaph writ fair in fruitage eloquent, 
 
 Thy living self thy monument." 
 
Sidney Lanier 21 
 
 The poet, in sweet and lofty philosophy con 
 tinues his similes, comparing the elements of 
 his stalwart and lustrous corn-stalk with the 
 nature and the work of the true poet. Then, 
 with rapid and masterly touches, he paints a 
 picture of a deserted Georgia farm and describes 
 the woeful circumstances which force the far 
 mer to forsake the old homestead, after having 
 vainly chased the rainbow of wealth, which he 
 imagines can be grasped by abandoning the 
 cultivation of corn for speculative crops of cot 
 ton. The exposition which the poet gives of the 
 processes by which the trusting but deceived 
 cotton-farmer is finally brought to ruin is 
 graphic and powerful. 
 
 Very dear to the heart of our great Georgia 
 poet is the old deserted Georgian hill which 
 
 "Bares to the sun his piteous aged crest, 
 
 And seamy breast, 
 
 By restless-hearted children left to lie 
 Untended there beneath the heedless sky, 
 As barbarous folks expose their old to die"; 
 
 and in conclusion, the poet apostrophizes it in 
 the following exquisite and majestic lines : 
 
 "Old hill ! old hill ! thou gashed and hairy Lear, 
 Whom the divine Cordelia of the year, 
 E en pitying Spring, will vainly strive to cheer 
 King, that no subject man nor beast may own, 
 Discrowned, undaughtered, and alone 
 Yet shall the great God turn thy fate, 
 And bring thee back into thy monarch state 
 And majesty immaculate." 
 
22 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 This poem was universally admired, and 
 secured for its author the warm friendship and 
 the valuable influence of many of the foremost 
 writers and critics of the day. Prominent 
 among these was Bayard Taylor, through 
 whose instrumentality Lanier was selected to 
 write the words for the cantata which was sung 
 at the opening of the Centennial Exposition at 
 Philadelphia in 1876. It will be remembered 
 that this poem created a literary sensation at 
 the time on account of its unique conception, 
 its peculiar construction, and its remarkable 
 meters and rhythmic effects. Quite a war of 
 words took place in critical, literary, and musi 
 cal circles, which were arrayed for and against 
 the poem, and Lanier himself came to the de 
 fense of his production in a vigorous and 
 scholarly article. 
 
 Ill health again compelled him to leave Balti 
 more, but after an absence of a year he returned 
 to that city, resuming his place in the Peabody 
 Orchestra, and continuing with that organiza 
 tion for three winters. In 1877 a small volume 
 of his poems appeared from the press of the 
 Lippincotts. It was dedicated in some charm 
 ing verses to Charlotte Cushman. The volume 
 contained "Corn," "The Symphony," "The 
 Psalm of the West," and a few miscellaneous 
 poems. 
 
 During this period he also delivered a series 
 of private lectures on the poetry of the Eliza- 
 
Sidney Lanier 23 
 
 bethan era, and a course of lectures on Shakes 
 peare. In 1879 he was appointed lecturer in 
 English literature at the Johns Hopkins Univer 
 sity in Baltimore, a position which opened to 
 him the prospect of a brilliant and useful career, 
 with the assurance of a comfortable salary. 
 During the preceding summer he wrote his 
 "Science of English Verse," an elaborate, 
 scholarly, and original treatise on that subject, 
 presenting Lanier s peculiar ideas concerning 
 the technique of English versification, and 
 which he has illustrated with striking and beau 
 tiful effect in the poetry which marks the high 
 tide of his genius. 
 
 His constantly increasing sickness frequently 
 prostrated him, yet despite this affliction he 
 would rally himself and continue his exacting 
 labors as a musician and as a lecturer at the 
 University. Some of his lectures were pub 
 lished in book-form under the title of "The 
 English Novel." In addition to these works 
 he wrote and published a volume descriptive 
 of the scenery, climate, and history of Florida, 
 and also edited in a charming manner three 
 illustrated books for boys, putting into modern 
 form and diction some of the classic chronicles, 
 tales, and ballads of ancient chivalry. 
 
 In the summer of 1881 he went to the moun 
 tain region of North Carolina, where he tried 
 camp-life for a few months, but found no relief 
 from his sufferings. On the seventh day of the 
 
24 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 following September he died, in the thirty-ninth 
 year of his age. In 1885 n] s complete poetical 
 works, edited by his wife, and with an excellent 
 memorial written by William Hayes Ward, was 
 issued from the press of Charles Scribner s 
 Sons, New York. 
 
 When the spirit of Sidney Lanier left its frail 
 earthly tenement for that celestial home where 
 dwell "the pure in heart who see God," his 
 brother poet, Paul Hayne, wrote to me: 
 "Lanier had so much work to do it does seem 
 mysterious that he should have been suddenly 
 called away; yet biography is full of just such 
 cases. We dwell in a world of riddles, seeing 
 through a glass darkly. One must either trust 
 in a higher power unquestioningly, or simply 
 despair. For my part I prefer to trust." 
 
 Those who have made a study of the work 
 which Lanier was permitted to do and which 
 testifies to the excellence of his art, and justifies 
 his claim to literary immortality, will sincerely 
 unite in the regret expressed by the elder poet, 
 who himself, only five years later, was called 
 from labor to rest. 
 
 Though Lanier s work was fragmentary and 
 his collected poems form but a small volume, 
 yet he displays such luminousness of inspira 
 tion, such perfection of artistic skill, such refine 
 ment and culture, and taste, such depth and 
 tenderness of feeling, such rare originality, and 
 exquisite melodiousness, as amply to merit the 
 
Sidney Lanier 25 
 
 statement made by one of the most prominent 
 London reviews concerning him. "Lanier," 
 says the reviewer, "died so early that he really 
 did not show us more than the bud of his genius, 
 but if he had lived ten years longer he would, 
 we believe, have ranked high among English 
 poets and probably above every American poet 
 of the past." This is high but well-deserved 
 praise. 
 
 Sidney Lanier was the Chevalier Bayard of 
 American literary men. A purer, gentler, 
 nobler spirit never existed on earth, and this 
 spirit he wrote into his poetry. The very fine 
 ness and ethereality of his verse, its delicacy, 
 spirituality and delicious musical qualities, are 
 the main reasons why Lanier s poetry is not 
 popular in the commonly accepted meaning of 
 that word. A highly cultivated talent for the 
 appreciation of poetry and music is requisite 
 for the full and satisfying comprehension and 
 enjoyment of Lanier s poetry. 
 
 Intellectually and morally he abhorred what 
 soever is base, common, sordid, or merely con 
 ventional. He especially despised the merce 
 nary, cold, and narrow spirit of the times, and 
 the smug, mean commonplaceness of the world. 
 His purpose was to elevate the souls of men into 
 loftier and purer regions of thought and aspira 
 tion. His splendid poem "The Symphony" is 
 full of strenuous, virile, and melodious protests 
 against the withering and deadening influences 
 
26 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 of the sordid aims and actions of men, and the 
 groveling- mercantile methods of the age. He 
 begins this noble strain with the exclamation : 
 
 "O Trade! O Trade! would thou wert dead! 
 The age needs heart tis tired of head," 
 
 and he ends with a sublime apostrophe to the 
 beauty and power of love. 
 
 In this poem each instrument of the orchestra, 
 in turn, takes up the sweet but manly protests 
 urged against the barren, selfish, and brutaliz 
 ing influences of the maddening greed for 
 money, and against the octopus power of trade, 
 to strangle the nobler aspirations of the soul, 
 and to destroy the tender and generous sympa 
 thies and affections of the heart. 
 
 The violins, assisted by all the mightier 
 strings, enter the arena of song to defend and 
 champion love and art. Having pleaded pas 
 sionately for a cessation of the strangling 
 methods of the fierce spirit of trade, and for 
 relief from the deadly pressure of it upon the 
 throats of the helpless poor, the stringed instru 
 ments sink at last 
 
 "to gentle throbbing 
 
 Of long chords change-marked with sobbing 
 Motherly sobbing, not distinctlier heard 
 Than half wing-openings of the sleeping bird, 
 Some dream of danger to her young had stirred." 
 
 (By the way, can there be found in our litera 
 ture anything more perfect, more wonderfully 
 
Sidney Lanier 27 
 
 delicate and ethereal, than the lines I have just 
 quoted?) 
 
 Presently upon the tranquil surface of the 
 melody of the strings, 
 
 "A velvet flute-note fell down pleasantly 
 Upon the bosom of that harmony, 
 And sailed and sailed incessantly, 
 As if a petal from a wild-rose blown 
 Had fluttered down upon that pool of tone, 
 And boat-wise dropped upon the convex side, 
 And floated down the glassy tide, 
 And clarified and glorified 
 The solemn spaces where the shadows bide. 
 From the warm concave of that fluted note 
 Somewhat half song, half odor forth did float, 
 As if a rose might somehow be a throat ;" 
 
 and the flute takes up the melodious contest 
 with the declaration that 
 
 "Man s love ascends 
 To finer and diviner ends, 
 Than man s mere thought e er comprehends," 
 
 and then the flute demands of Science : 
 
 "Whence and why 
 Man s tender pain, man s inward cry 
 When he doth gaze on earth and sky ?" 
 
 The flute then describes the various voices 
 of nature which it utters, and of which it claims 
 to be the interpreter. These passages of the 
 flute-song contain brilliant jewels of poetry, 
 flashing and shining with the pure light of 
 imagination. They strain our sense of the 
 beautiful to the utmost limit. 
 
28 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 When the flute-voice has ceased, the clari 
 onet, representing the reed instruments, takes 
 up the strain in the melting tones : 
 
 "A lady sings while yet 
 Her eyes with salty tears are wet." 
 
 In this personification the clarionet speaks of 
 
 "What shameful ways have women trod 
 At beckoning of trade s golden rod," 
 
 and of the misery which follows the traffic in 
 hearts for gold ; and the poet exclaims : 
 
 "If men loved larger, larger were our lives, 
 And wooed they nobler, won they nobler wives." 
 
 Then the bold, straightforward horn thrusts 
 itself into the musical battle in behalf of the 
 clarionet-voiced lady, who bemoans the sad con 
 dition of love under the cruel and destructive 
 despotism of heartless Trade. A bold, brave 
 song of manly scorn and of loyalty to truth and 
 love rings in this heartsome voice. It is a burn 
 ing, withering arraignment and denunciation of 
 many of the social crimes of the day. The 
 poet s keen blade pierces the shams and shames 
 which disgrace and corrupt the times, and the 
 disgusting skeleton is pilloried in the sight of 
 the whole world. "Is the day of chivalry 
 dead ?" cries the poet : 
 
 "Is Honor gone into his grave? 
 Hath faith become a caitiff knave, 
 And selfhood turned into a slave, 
 To work in mammon s cave? 
 
Sidney Lanier 29 
 
 For aye shall name and fame be sold, 
 
 And place be hugged, be hugged for the sake of gold, 
 
 And smirch-robed justice feebly scold 
 
 At crime all money-bold ! 
 Shall woman scorch for a single sin, 
 That her betrayer can revel in, 
 And she be burnt, and he but grin 
 
 When that the flames begin? 
 Shall ne er prevail the woman s plea : 
 We maids would far, far whiter be 
 If that our eyes might sometimes see 
 
 Men maids in purity !" 
 
 Proclaiming- his faith in God, and in the 
 triumph of the True, and announcing his deter 
 mination to fight on for true love, the "knightly 
 horn" ceases, and the hautboy, singing like any 
 
 "large-eyed child 
 Cool hearted and undefiled," 
 
 takes up the fight against the truth and love 
 and honor destroying spirit of Trade, and then 
 the ancient wise bassoons are heard mingling 
 their voices with the sea-like sound of the in 
 struments, and the symphony concludes with 
 the chanting of the bassoon voices, the poet 
 figuring Life as a "sea- fugue, writ from East to 
 West," whose dissolving score, harsh lialf- 
 phrasings, and double erasings Love alone can 
 make perfect. Love alone the "sole music- 
 master blessed," can read "Life s weltering 
 palimpsest:" 
 
 "To follow Time s dying melodies through, 
 And never to lose the old in the new, 
 And ever to solve the discords true 
 Love alone can do. 
 
30 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 And ever Love hears the poor folks crying, 
 And ever Love hears the women s sighing, 
 And ever sweet knighthood s death defying, 
 And ever wise childhood s deep implying, 
 But never a trader s glozing and lying. 
 And yet shall Love himself be heard, 
 Though long deferred, though long deferred: 
 O er the modern waste a dove hath whirred 
 Music is Love in search of a word." 
 
 All of Lanier s life was a beautiful poem. 
 His heart like an ^Eolian harp responded in 
 music to every wind of fortune, whether it blew 
 as a zephyr from Hesperian gardens or as a 
 blast from the storm-clouds of adversity. He 
 sang like a nightingale, though the thorn was 
 rankling in his breast. In song he sought 
 respite from his sufferings, and in sweet com 
 munion with nature found hope and peace and 
 happiness. 
 
 Even while the hand of Death lay heavily 
 upon him, the divine strength of his nature 
 asserted itself. As he was lying in his rude 
 camp on a mountainside in North Carolina, 
 whither, accompanied by his faithful wife, he 
 had gone as a last place of refuge against the 
 assaults of the fatal disease which was consum 
 ing him, and while the herald-beams of the dawn 
 were tenderly tipping the looming peaks with 
 golden flames, we are told that he wrote with 
 trembling hand on the back of an envelope the 
 following lines : 
 
 "I was the earliest bird awake, I believe, 
 And, somehow, the mountain-tops did not hinder me, 
 And I was aware of the dawn, 
 Not by mine eyes, but by my heart" 
 
Sidney Lanier 31 
 
 O tender heart ! O clairvoyant spirit ! It was 
 the symbol, the reflection of the dawn-light of 
 eternity that thou didst see and feel, streaming 
 from the opening gates of Paradise across the 
 misty mountain-tops of Time ! 
 
 Out of his ideal home-life Sidney Lanier 
 largely drew the material for the ideals of his 
 art, and in his wife and children he found much 
 of the substance which served him for the woof 
 and warp of his finest poetic works. These 
 wholesome influences kept him serene in his 
 darkest days of physical and mental suffering. 
 They nerved him for the battle of life, cheered 
 him in despondency, and made ample amends 
 for all the acute pain which his sensitive soul 
 was forced to endure from the "slings and 
 arrows of outrageous fortune." 
 
 To him the word "home" had a peculiar 
 meaning, to which he has given utterance in his 
 novel : 
 
 "To make a home out of a household," he 
 says, "given the raw material, to wit : wife, 
 children, a friend or two, and a house, two other 
 things are necessary these are a good fire and 
 good music ; and inasmuch as we can do without 
 the fire for half the year, I may say music is 
 the one essential. Music means harmony, har 
 mony means love, love means God." 
 
 In this description Lanier, in substance, gives 
 expression to the beautiful thought of Emerson, 
 when the poet-philosopher says : "Where the 
 
32 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 heart is, there the Muses, there the gods so 
 journ, and not in any geography of fame. See 
 to it only that thyself is here, and art and nature, 
 hope and fate, friend and angels, and the 
 Supreme Being shall not be absent from the 
 chamber where thou sittest." 
 
 He never lost his faith in God and in his art. 
 In his poetry and in his music he was a master 
 of both he found comfort and consolation; 
 this is attested by a passage in one of his letters 
 to his father, in which he says : 
 
 "Think how for twenty years, through 
 poverty, through pain, through weariness, 
 through sickness, through the uncongenial 
 atmosphere of a farcical college, and of a bare 
 army, and then of an exacting business life, 
 through the discouragements of being wholly 
 unacquainted with literary people and liter 
 ary ways I say, think how in spite of all these 
 depressing circumstances, and of a thousand 
 more which I could enumerate, these two 
 figures of Music and Poetry have steadily kept 
 in my heart, so that I could not banish them. 
 Does it not seem to you as to me that I begin to 
 have the right to enroll myself among the de 
 votees of these two sublime arts, after having 
 followed them so long and so humbly and 
 through so much bitterness? 
 
 A gifted lady, now dead, a relative of the 
 poet, in a monograph printed for private circu 
 lation, some years ago, pays an eloquent tribute 
 
Sidney Lanier 33 
 
 to Larder s idyllic home-life, and speaks of the 
 poet s devotion to his wife, and of the beautiful 
 character of this accomplished woman. 
 
 She says: "The supreme charm of that 
 home-life lay in his devotion to his wife, and 
 hers for him. She married a penniless, mis 
 understood poet, already doomed with con 
 sumption, and through the terror and the pain 
 of many long days, when she knew not where 
 the bread could come from that was to feed her 
 little children, she kept a hopeful outlook, and 
 remained to the last her poet-lover s bright 
 inspiration." 
 
 Affluently, completely did the poet repay the 
 heroic devotion and constant love of this perfect 
 wife. His poems are full of her. Witness that 
 tenderest of love-songs, "My Springs"; and 
 what a knightly strain is this : 
 
 "O sweet ! I know not if thy heart my heart can greet, 
 I ask not if thy love my love can meet ; 
 Whate er thy worshipful soft tongue shall say, 
 I ll kiss thine answer, be it yea or nay; 
 I do but know I love thee, and I pray 
 To be thy knight until my dying day." 
 
 In his "June Dreams in January," which 
 seems to have been written with his heart s 
 blood, this profoundly pathetic passage occurs : 
 
 "Why can we poets dream us beauty so, 
 But cannot dream us bread? Why, now, can I 
 Make, aye create this fervid throbbing June 
 Out of the chill, chill matter of my soul, 
 Yet cannot make a poorest penny loaf 
 Out of this same chill matter, no, not one 
 For Mary, though she starve upon my breast?" 
 
34 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 The crystal-pure nature of Lanier s love for 
 his wife, as well as the beauty of his poetic art, 
 is shown in the following lovely poem : 
 
 "MY SPRINGS. 
 
 "Always, when the large form of love 
 Is hid by storms that rage above, 
 I gaze on my two springs, and see 
 Love in its very verity. 
 
 "Always, when Faith with stifling stress 
 Of grief that died in bitterness, 
 I gaze in my two springs, and see 
 A faith that smiles immortally. 
 
 "Always, when Art with perverse wing, 
 Flies where I cannot hear him sing, 
 I gaze in my two springs, and see 
 A charm that brings him back to me. 
 
 "When labor faints and glory fails, 
 And coy reward in sighs exhales, 
 I gaze in my two springs, and see 
 Attainment full and heavenly. 
 
 "O Love! O Wife! thine eyes are they, 
 My springs, from out whose shining gray 
 Issue the sweet, celestial streams, 
 That feed my life s bright lake of dreams. 
 
 "Dear eyes, dear eyes, and rare complete, 
 Being heavenly sweet and earthly sweet, 
 I marvel that God made you mine, 
 For when He frowns, tis then ye shine." 
 
 In a letter to his wife, in which he endeavors 
 to cheer her with his own brave heart and 
 devout Christian philosophy, he writes : 
 
Sidney Lanier 35 
 
 "I will make to thee a little confession of faith 
 telling thee, my dearer self, in words what I do 
 not say to my not-so-dear self except in more 
 modest feeling. 
 
 "Know, then, that disappointments were in 
 evitable, and will still come until I have fought 
 the battle which every great artist has had to 
 fight since time began. This dimly felt while 
 I was doubtful of my own vocation and powers 
 is clear as the sun to me, now that I know 
 through the fiercest tests of life, that I am in 
 soul, and shall be in life and utterance, a great 
 poet. 
 
 "The philosophy of my disappointments is 
 that there is so much cleverness standing be 
 twixt me and the public. Richard Wagner is 
 sixty years old and older, and one-half of the 
 most cultivated artists of the most cultivated 
 art-land still think him an absurdity. Says 
 Schumann in one of his letters : The publish 
 ers will not listen to me for a moment ; and dost 
 thou not remember Schubert, and Richter, and 
 John Keats, and a sweet host more ? 
 
 "Now this is written because I sit here in my 
 room daily, and picture thee picturing me worn 
 and troubled or disheartened, and because I do 
 not wish you to think up any groundless sorrow 
 in thy soul. Of course, I have my keen sorrows, 
 momentarily more keen than I would like any 
 one to know, but I thank God, that in a knowl 
 edge of Him and of myself which cometh to me 
 
36 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 daily in fresh revelations, I have a steadfast 
 firmament of blue in which all clouds dissolve." 
 And so on, through all the struggles and dis 
 appointments, in darkness and in light, in "hope 
 deferred which maketh the heart sick/ unto the 
 time when the clouds began to break and the 
 morning sunshine of a brighter future illumined 
 the pathway of the poet, alas! only to close 
 suddenly in the gloom of death, this valiant, 
 patient spirit toiled on in the service of the two 
 arts to which he had consecrated himself, con 
 tinuing to sing tender and charming songs, and 
 to write noble poems breathing the essence of 
 love aflame with the sacred fire of truth, and 
 radiant with the serene glory of art. When the 
 transient sunshine of prosperity began to fall 
 upon his path, pitiful it was that this prosperity 
 should have lasted but a year or two. He wrote 
 to his dear ones in their distant Georgia home 
 this exquisite invocation : 
 
 "O Sweet, my Sweet, to dream is power, 
 And I can dream thee bread and dream thee wine, 
 And I will dream thee robes and gems, dear Love, 
 To clothe thy holy loveliness withal ; 
 And I will dream thee here to live by me, 
 Thee, and my little man thou holdest at breast ; 
 Come name, come fame, and kiss my sweetheart s feet." 
 
 The pathetic story of this rare life closed in 
 a manner becoming its beauti f ul theme. I quote 
 again from the little memoir, to which allusion 
 has already been made ; the writer says : 
 
Sidney Lanier 37 
 
 "But the unequal struggle for bread was not 
 to continue long. Just as the public was begin 
 ning to appreciate his work, God silenced the 
 flute-moan, and lifted the brave spirit into a 
 region of happier melodies. For days, at the 
 last, he seemed dying by inches, yet with perfect 
 consciousness, and with the exaltation of those 
 pure in heart who shall see God. 
 
 "Sunrise," his last and his grandest poem, 
 was written when he was too weak even to raise 
 his hand to his mouth. The poem was one of 
 his series of "Hymns of the Marshes." This 
 unfinished series includes "Sunrise," "Individ 
 uality," "Sunset," and the "Marshes of Glynn." 
 
 The poems of this series are suffused with 
 the celestial light of genius. They are frag 
 ments of exquisite art and contain the quintes 
 sence of the poet s ideal life. The workmanship 
 is perfect. They display a wealth of imagery, 
 a power of imagination, a subtle sweetness of 
 music and harmony of numbers, a profound 
 philosophic insight into the mysterious lan 
 guage and portents of nature, and a knowledge 
 of the deepest thoughts and intuitions of the 
 human heart, unequaled in American poetry, 
 and surpassed only by a few of the master-poets 
 of the world. 
 
 Listen to the poet s invocation to the leaves, 
 as he stands at sunrise in the marsh, holding 
 spiritual converse with the live oak : 
 
 "The sweet burly-barked, man-bodied tree," 
 
38 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 which his arms are embracing in the prescient 
 darkness that precedes sunrise : 
 
 "Ye lisperers, whisperers, singers in storms, 
 Ye consciences, murmuring faiths under forms, 
 Ye ministers, meet for each passion that grieves, 
 ^ Friendly, sisterly, sweetheart leaves. 
 Oh, rain me down from your darks that contain me, 
 Wisdoms ye winnow from winds that pain me ; 
 Sift down tremors of sweet-within-sweet, 
 That advise me of more than they bring repeat 
 Me the woods-smell that swiftly but now brought breath 
 From the heaven-side bank of the river of Death 
 Teach me the terms of silence preach me 
 The passion of patience sift me impeach me 
 
 And there, oh there, 
 
 As ye hang, with your myriad palms upturned in the air, 
 Pray me a myriad prayer." 
 
 And what a magnificent picture the poet 
 paints for us, a little farther on, of the strange 
 sights and sounds on the edge of the marsh, just 
 as the premonitory signs of the coming dawn 
 betray themselves to the poet s eyes and ears : 
 
 "The tide s at full; the marsh with flooded streams 
 Glimmers, a limpid labyrinth of dreams ; 
 Each winding creek in grave entrancement lies, 
 A rhapsody of morning stars. The skies 
 Shine scant with one forked galaxy 
 The marsh brags ten : looped on his breast they lie. 
 
 "Oh, what if a sound should be made! 
 Oh, what if a bound should be laid 
 To this bow-and-string tension of beauty and silence 
 
 aspring, 
 To the bend of beauty, the bow, or the hold of silence, 
 
 the string! 
 
 I fear me, I fear me yon dome of diaphanous gleam, 
 Will break as a bubble o er-blown in a dream 
 
Sidney Lanier 39 
 
 Yon dome of too-tenuous tissues of space and of night, 
 O er-weighted with stars, over-freighted with light, 
 Over-sated with beauty and silence, will seem 
 
 But a bubble, that broke in a dream, 
 If a bound of degree to this grace be laid, 
 
 Or a sound or a motion made." 
 
 But the inevitable denouement of the majestic 
 drama about to be enacted, and which the poet 
 feels in his soul, develops itself rapidly. The 
 sound and motion hinted at in the prophecy 
 declared in the premonitions of dawn, begin to 
 be audible and to stir : 
 
 "But no: it is made: list! somewhere mystery, where? 
 
 In the leaves? In the air? 
 In my heart ? is a motion made : 
 
 Tis a motion of dawn, like a flicker of shade on shade. 
 In the leaves tis palpable ; low, multitudinous stirring 
 Upwinds through the woods ; the little ones, softly con 
 ferring, 
 Have settled my lord s to be looked for; so, they are 
 
 still; 
 
 But the air and my heart and the earth are athrill 
 And look, where the wild duck sails round the bend of 
 the river, 
 
 And look, where a passionate shiver 
 Expectant, is bending the blades 
 Of the marsh-grass in serial shimmers and shades 
 And invisible wings, fast fleeting, fast fleeting, 
 
 Are beating 
 The dark overhead as my heart beats and, steady and 
 
 free, 
 
 Is the ebb-tide flowing from marsh to sea 
 Run home, little streams, 
 With your lapfuls of stars and dreams 
 And a sailor, unseen, is hoisting a-peak, 
 For, list, down the inshore curve of the creek 
 
 How merrily flutters the sail 
 And lo, in the East ! Will the East unveil ? 
 
40 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 The East is unveiled, the East hath confessed 
 A flush: tis dead; tis alive; tis dead, ere the West 
 Was aware of it; nay, tis abiding, tis unwithdrawn : 
 Have a care, sweet Heaven ! tis Dawn." 
 
 The well-known English critic, Le Gallienne, 
 in an article wherein he discusses the merits of 
 Lanier s poems, says of the "Marshes of 
 Glynn": 
 
 "There are four hymns in all, but only two 
 are of real importance, namely, Sunrise* and 
 the Marshes of Glynn. In fact, had he written 
 all his other poems and missed writing these, 
 striking, suggestive and fine lines as those other 
 poems often are, he could hardly have been said 
 to succeed in his high poetic ambition, as by these 
 two poems, I think, he must be allowed to suc 
 ceed. In the other poems you see many of the 
 other qualities, perhaps all the qualities, which 
 strike you in the hymns the impassionate 
 observation of nature, the Donne-like meta 
 physical fancy, the religious and somewhat 
 mystic elevation of feeling, expressed often in 
 terms of deep imaginative understanding of 
 modern scientific conceptions ; in fact, you find 
 all save the important quality of that ecstasy 
 which in The Glynns fuses all into one splen 
 did flame of adoration, upon the altar of the 
 visible universe. The ecstasy of modern man 
 as he stands and beholds the sunrise, or the 
 coming of the stars, or any such superb ele 
 mental glory, has perhaps never been so keenly 
 
Sidney Lanier 41 
 
 translated into verse. Those who heard Lanier 
 play remarked upon the strange violin effects 
 which he conquered from the flute. Is it fanci 
 ful to feel that in these long, sweeping and 
 heartbreakingly sensitive lines, Lanier equally 
 cheated his father who, as we know, feared for 
 him the fascination of the violin? It needs a 
 long quotation, and even that may properly he 
 inadequate, to illustrate what I mean. Lanier 
 is often exquisite and lovingly learned in detail, 
 but his verse is large in movement and needs 
 room." 
 
 In person Lanier was the ideal poet. Tall 
 and slender, graceful in his movements, dignified 
 yet gentle in demeanor. His features were 
 expressive and classic in outline, his eyes were 
 clear, large and soulful, his voice was soft and 
 musical, his presence attracted attention at once, 
 and proclaimed him to be a man far above the 
 common standard. 
 
 The first time I had the pleasure of meeting 
 him was in Atlanta, and I was introduced to 
 him by a mutual friend. He had stopped for a 
 day in this city, while on his way to Macon from 
 San Antonio, Texas, where he had spent a few 
 months for his health. A musical and literary 
 entertainment was to be given that night in one 
 of the public halls for some charitable purpose. 
 He had been invited to take part in the program. 
 Together we left the hotel, and walked to the 
 hall. He was introduced to the audience and 
 
42 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 played in his usual masterly manner several 
 beautiful airs on his flute. The audience was 
 thrilled by the sweetness of his playing, and, 
 in response to an insistent encore, he played the 
 familiar air of "Home, Sweet Home," with 
 lovely variations of his own. 
 
 When the entertainment was over we re 
 turned to the hotel. He invited me to his room. 
 From a discursive conversation about litera 
 ture, music, and art in general, we drifted into 
 metaphysics German metaphysics at that. I 
 was amazed at his profound and intimate 
 knowledge of that abstruse science and his 
 familiarity with the writings of the great think 
 ers of Germany, whose works he had studied 
 with all the ardor of his intensely warm and 
 imaginative nature. He gave full play to his 
 splendid faculties, and like the Theban eagle 
 
 "Soaring with supreme dominion 
 Through the azure depths of air," 
 
 he touched the crests of the loftiest heights of 
 philosophic thought. We "took no note of 
 time/ so profoundly absorbed were we in the 
 discussion, and it was past three o clock in the 
 morning before we, reluctantly, parted. It was 
 an ambrosial night, the recollection of which, 
 coupled with the melodious voice and spirituelle 
 face of him who long ago has joined "the choir 
 invisible," lingers ineffaceably in my mind and 
 in my heart. 
 
Sidney Lanier 43 
 
 It is not necessary here to enlarge upon the 
 ethereal beauty, the philosophic insight, the 
 pure moral purpose, the manly strength, the 
 rich and variant music, the frequently almost 
 inapprehensible spirituality of Lanier s best 
 work. These qualities we find in "Corn," the 
 poem which first made him famous, and fuller 
 still in that lofty flight of his peculiar genius, 
 "The Symphony," and that unique and most 
 perfect cluster of all his poetic gems, the 
 "Marshes of Glynn," in which he reveals to the 
 highest degree his masterful knowledge of the 
 subtlest mysteries, and his command of the 
 rarest resources, of the divine art of poesy. The 
 qualities which Baudelaire recognizes in Edgar 
 Allan Poe, we also find in Sidney Lanier, 
 namely, "The extra-terrestrial accent, the mel 
 ancholy calm, the delicious solemnity, the pre 
 cocious experience, I had almost said the inborn 
 experience, which characterizes great poets." 
 
 In that supreme court in which such questions 
 are finally adjudicated, the verdict has already 
 been rendered, and this favorable verdict will 
 stand the test of time. It is sufficient to say that 
 Sidney Lanier wrote for immortality and ac 
 complished his purpose. 
 
 A fine bronze bust of Lanier is in the Johns 
 Hopkins University at Baltimore; another, a 
 copy of the Baltimore bust, was presented to 
 the city of Macon by Mr. Charles Lanier, a 
 
44 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 cousin of the poet. Both memorials were 
 publicly unveiled with interesting- ceremonial 
 exercises. 
 
 At Macon the ceremony took place on the 
 1 7th of October, 1890, and the poet s native 
 city made a festival day of the event. The 
 memorial poem written by Mr. William H. 
 Hayne, of Augusta, one of Georgia s sweetest 
 poets, is as follows : 
 
 "Unveil the noble brow, the deep-souled eyes, 
 Wherein melodious unities 
 Of music and of poetry were born, 
 For, undeterred by care s half sluggish thorn, 
 Barbed oft with suffering, he bravely brought 
 To song s full bloom his lyric buds of thought. 
 
 "Here Love and Homage shall alike proclaim 
 The undying whiteness of our poet s fame, 
 Wed to the marble, yet exempt from cold, 
 As winter s clouds blest by the sun s warm gold. 
 
 "And now I hear, 
 Far off yet clear, 
 Two voices that are one ; 
 For, drawing close to music s feet, 
 Tis thus her lyric sister sweet 
 Sings of their cherished son: 
 
 "Strong-winged and free, each word of me 
 Thrilled through his heart and brain ; 
 His soul was lit by lights that flit 
 Across the waving grain; 
 
 "The marshes drear he made a prayer, 
 With words whose wondrous flight 
 Bore thoughts that reach through rhythmic speech 
 To sun-lands out of sight. 
 
Sidney Lanier 45 
 
 "He let no seed from Doubt s dark weed 
 
 Fall in the holy shrine, 
 Where Song was bred, by Music led 
 To beckoning heights divine ; 
 
 "And seldom mute, his silver flute 
 
 Invoked with matchless art, 
 Each wave of sound by silence bound 
 Within her vestal heart. 
 
 "Death s arctic fear a cordial rare 
 
 To his enraptured dream 
 Came from the Blue his spirit knew, 
 Of Love and Faith supreme. 
 
 His Sunrise Song, with rapture strong, 
 
 Rose like a lark in light, 
 Who feels the sway of sovereign day 
 Reign o er the mists of Night. 
 
 "He loved the flow of winds that blow 
 
 To odor-currents set, 
 The gem-like hue of fleeting dew, 
 Frail rose and violet ; 
 
 The soul in trees, whose litanies 
 
 His reverent spirit heard, 
 The corn blade rife with vernal life, 
 The rune of bee or bird. 
 
 "Strong-winged and free, each word of me 
 
 Thrilled through his heart and brain, 
 His soul was lit by lights that flit 
 Across the waving grain ; 
 
 "The marshes drear he made a prayer 
 With words whose wondrous flight 
 Bore thoughts that reach through rhythmic speech 
 To sun-lands out of sight." 
 
46 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 Mr. Harry Stillwell Edwards contributed the 
 following tender lines : 
 
 "O, not for us who knew thee, thou dear immortal ! 
 Lifts now the veil from this thy sculptured wraith; 
 Love long has watched thy shrine, and o er its portal 
 Burns his bright torch and hangs the star of faith ; 
 When that clear flame fades into blackened ember, 
 And in the new white morn the fair Faith-star is set, 
 When we the beauty of thy holiness forget, 
 Then Art may teach the frail heart to remember; 
 Nor need to teach it then while, far and free, 
 Thy music wanders o er the boundless sea. 
 Yield to the stranger-lovers, then, yon sad presentment, 
 That dims our sight with the unfallen tear ; 
 Smiles ever by our hearts firesides, in sweet content 
 ment, 
 The tender face of our own lost Lanier." 
 
 In a charming quatrain written for the occa 
 sion by John B. Tabb, he describes Lanier s 
 spirit as 
 
 "A spirit like the marshes large and wide, 
 All flooded o er with mystic harmonies 
 Of sunrise, and the swelling of the tide, 
 Or grave enhancement of the evening skies." 
 
 President D. C. Oilman, of the Johns Hop 
 kins University, in his letter to the committee 
 says : 
 
 "The friends of Sidney Lanier in Baltimore 
 have been very glad to hear that a likeness of 
 the poet has been placed in the public library 
 of his native city. You are to be congratulated 
 on having a replica of the bust that we have 
 here. Every time that I look at it I am re- 
 
Sidney Lanier 47 
 
 minded of his chivalric bearing, of his persua 
 sive voice, of his lofty ideals, and every time I 
 open the pages of his poems I regret that a life 
 which accomplished much and promised more, 
 was brought to its close so soon. 
 
 "We need not concern ourselves with respect 
 to the life of his poetry that takes care of it 
 self; but it is well to endeavor to perpetuate 
 the unusual characteristics of the man and to 
 keep in mind the native of Georgia who, amid 
 all the discouragement which came from ill- 
 health and all the change which the war in 
 volved, was constantly striving for the noblest 
 and best. His name is among the names most 
 honored in the annals of this University. 
 Aspiro dum aspiro is the motto which has been 
 placed upon the memorial tablet that here bears 
 his name. It is the record of his latter years." 
 
 Letters of sincere appreciation were received 
 and read from noted authors in all parts of the 
 country, and Charles G. D. Roberts, the poet, 
 speaking for Canada, writes : 
 
 "I have counted it one of my chief delights 
 that I may have been able to hasten a little here 
 in Canada the proper recognition of his genius. 
 There is a personal element in Lanier s poetry 
 which makes intenser appeal to me than that of 
 any other American poet but Emerson. Aside 
 from this consideration, I cannot but think that 
 Lanier was, potentially at least, one of the three 
 or four masters of American song. It seems to 
 
48 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 me that he reached heights of insight and lyric 
 fervor which have been surpassed by no other 
 poet of America. His work, moreover, like 
 that of two other poets very dissimilar to him 
 and to each other, Poe and Emerson, is stamped 
 with that individuality of structure, that in 
 sistent originality of cadence most apt to im 
 press the art of succeeding singers. His place 
 is already lofty and secure, and his influence, 
 which makes for all that is ideal in song, will 
 continue its advance in ever-widening circles." 
 
 The chief address of the late Hon. W. B. Hill, 
 Chancellor of the University of Georgia, was 
 eloquent and masterly in subject and diction. 
 So beautifully does it describe for us the nobility 
 of Lanier s life, and the classic excellence of his 
 poetry, that I cannot resist the desire to repro 
 duce the address in full: 
 
 "Sidney Lanier sings the psalm of his own 
 life in the Song of the Chattahoochee. Pure 
 was that life as the mountain stream that in his 
 native Georgia flows 
 
 " Out of the hills of Habersham, 
 Down the valley of Hall. 
 
 Manifold hindrances uprose at every step to 
 deflect or bar his course, set toward poetry as 
 the mountain brook was set toward the sea. He 
 was held in thrall to the narrow channel of his 
 early life by the languor of wasting disease, and 
 by the presence in his "home- fond heart" of 
 
Sidney Lanier 49 
 
 family care. Bread for wife and children could 
 be earned in the uncongenial toil of a lawyer s 
 office, at the sacrifice of the destiny which 
 throbbed within him. Only a strong- faith could 
 prophesy that the manna could fall from those 
 larger heavens whose atmosphere his spirit 
 craved as its vital air. Listen how in the alle 
 gory of the song we hear these alluring appeals : 
 
 " All down the hills of Habersham, 
 All through the valleys of Hall, 
 The rushes cried abide, abide, 
 The wilful water-weeds held me thrall; 
 The laving laurel turned my tide, 
 The ferns and the fondling grass said, stay; 
 The dewberry dipped for to work delay, 
 And the little seed sighed, abide, abide, 
 Here in the hills of Habersham, 
 Here in the valleys of Hall. 
 
 "But no! the arid waste of a time parched 
 with the eagerness of its own greed, the drooping 
 flowers of beauty and love and holiness, the sea 
 of song stretching its sympathies around the 
 hard prosaic of human life, all need and sorely 
 need, the pure and quickening message which 
 strives within him to find vent. 
 
 " Duty whispers low, thou must/ Besides 
 the time is short, and so listen how the stream 
 asserts its strenuous outgoing mission : 
 
 " But oh, not the hills of Habersham, 
 And oh, not the valleys of Hall, 
 Avail : I am fain for to water the plain, 
 Downward the voices of duty call, 
 Down-ward to toil and be mixed with the main; 
 
50 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 The dry fields burn and the mills are to turn, 
 And the myriad of flowers mortally yearn, 
 And the lordly main from beyond the plain 
 Calls o er the hills of Habersham, 
 Calls through the valleys of Hall/ 
 
 "It was said of some poet that he will go 
 down to posterity with a small book under his 
 arm. The same is true of Lanier. But in 
 the growing accumulations of literature that 
 threaten to submerge us under books, books, 
 books, a title to immortality will more surely 
 rest on a few fine creations than on a ponderous 
 set of works. Let us ask, then, what are the 
 qualities that distinguish Lanier s poetry and 
 life, and for which he will be remembered : 
 
 "(i) Lanier is the type in a nineteenth cen 
 tury way of the union of musical and poetic 
 functions in the old-time bard or minstrel. The 
 real significance of the connection of his musical 
 genius with his poetic art lies not so much in 
 the mere skill in metrical forms, as in the en 
 richment of his poetic inspirations. To his 
 musical culture he was also indebted for his 
 Theory of the science of verse an attempt to 
 find scientific basis in the physical laws of music 
 for the laws of rhythm and poetical expression. 
 
 "Most strikingly this rare conjunction of 
 poetic gifts enabled him to surpass other poets 
 in the description of sounds ; not, perhaps, in the 
 description of the sounds of voluble bells, and 
 lowing herds, and surging seas, but the sounds 
 which, as George Eliot says, Lie upon the other 
 
Sidney Lanier 51 
 
 side of silence. He could hestr the squirrel s 
 heart beat. If to other poets it has been given 
 to behold the light that never was on land or 
 sea, to him it was given to hear voices in the 
 depths of woods, and the brooding of the 
 marshes which no ear but his had ever caught. 
 To his quickened hearing the indistinguishable 
 vibrations of the wings of bees made loud fan 
 fare. The rustling whispering of little green 
 leaves awake him in Sunrise from sleep. How 
 exquisite this description from Corn : 
 
 The copse depths into little noises start, 
 That sound anon like beatine of a heart, 
 Anon like talk twixt lips not far apart/ 
 
 "(2) Lanier is the poet of a passionate 
 purity. He is the laureate of the White Cross 
 movement of a later time the knightly order 
 of Sir Galahads, whose strength is as the 
 strength of ten, because their hearts are pure. 
 Woman s protest against the burning injustice 
 of a false public opinion, which man has 
 established, was never more finely uttered than 
 in the lines 
 
 Must woman scorch for a single sin, 
 Which her betrayer may revel in? 
 
 "A French writer has lately said that the only 
 receipt for creating interest in fiction is To 
 smash the Ten Commandments, but Lanier s 
 genius shrank in moral recoil from the pollution 
 
52 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 of this desperate and devilish device. To him be 
 longs the unique honor of having written, in the 
 fine poems called In Absence/ and Acknowl 
 edgment/ the only fitting response ever uttered 
 by masculine lips to the wifely love which is 
 glorified in Mrs. Browning s Sonnets from the 
 Portuguese/ and in these fine poems, together 
 with My Springs/ and Laus Marise/ we get 
 glimpses of the idyllic marriage which the poet 
 thought a rich compensation for all the other 
 perfect gifts which Providence denied. 
 
 "(3) In an age of materialism he has sung 
 the finer things of the spirit. To a generation 
 rushing madly after wealth, hardly pausing for 
 one moment around an open grave, making 
 business a battle ; wedging the poor 
 
 " Against an inward opening door 
 That pressure tightens evermore, 
 
 he sounds the cry 
 
 " Alas, for the poor to have some part 
 In yon sweet living land of art, 
 Makes problem not for head but heart." 
 
 "His song and his life are a splendid lesson 
 for this needy time the lesson that to be and 
 to know are greater things than to get and to 
 have. 
 
 "(4) He has enriched poetry with the reve 
 lation of aspects of nature hitherto unsung. He 
 was the first that ever burst into that silent sea 
 
 " The length and the breadth and the sweep of the 
 marshes of Glynn. 
 
Sidney Lanier 53 
 
 He was the first who has sung in lasting melody 
 the waving of the corn. His heart was as open 
 to all of Nature s revelations as the morning- 
 glory to the sun. A mere glance at the titles of 
 the poems will show how many objects touched 
 the springs of affection within him. Wherever 
 he went, Tampa, Brunswick, Chester, he 
 carried starry stuff about his wings/ and has 
 enriched his temporary homes with the pollen 
 of his songs. The peddler bee/ the gospeling 
 glooms of live oaks/ the marsh plants thirsty- 
 cupped for rain/ the myriad-prayer of leaves 
 with palms upturned in air/ the mocking-bird, 
 trim Shakespeare on the tree/ who summed 
 the woods in song/ These are but few of the 
 rare felicities of phrase which glow through all 
 the little green gilt volume of poems, like the 
 globes of gold that on a Florida Sunday 
 studded bright the green heavens of the orange 
 groves. 
 
 " ( 5 ) The story of his life is a heritage of all 
 time. The undaunted faith, that in the face of 
 all practical discouragements bade him take 
 flute and pen for sword and staff, and give his 
 allegiance to the twin arts he had so long 
 worshiped. The manly and uncomplaining 
 struggle with poverty and unrecognition. The 
 almost airy heroism with which he looked Death 
 in the eye, calling it 
 
 " The rich stirrup-cup of time/ 
 
54 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 that should send him glad on his journey to the 
 undiscovered country. All this is a record that 
 the world will not willingly let die. 
 
 " The idea of his life shall sweetly creep into 
 men s study of imagination/ 
 
 "Summing up all these qualities, and think 
 ing of others that cannot now be named, it is not 
 too much to say, in words which I quote from 
 Chief Justice Bleckley, himself a poet: His 
 fame which is now a mere germ, may one day 
 grow to be a tall cedar in the poetic Lebanon/ " 
 
PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE 
 
 The mocking-bird, who leads our woodland choir, 
 Taught thee the secrets of the minstrel s skill 
 The power to move the hearts of men at will, 
 To soothe the soul, to rouse, and to inspire ; 
 Thou "wakest to ecstasy the living lyre," 
 With the same exquisite and passionate trill, 
 Wherewith our matchless bird is wont to thrill 
 The listening woods, while voicing Love s desire. 
 Nature s warm mother-heart throbs close to thine, 
 She keeps no secret from thine eye or ear ; 
 The sky, the sea, the seasons changeful moods, 
 In thy translucent verse reflected shine ; 
 Of all who love her, she holds none more dear 
 Than thee, her hermit-minstrel of the woods. 
 
 Paul Hamilton Hayne, whose poetical works 
 occupy a conspicuous place in American litera 
 ture, and who deservedly ranks witL the most 
 distinguished of our native poets, was born in 
 Charleston, South Carolina, January i, 1830. 
 He was the scion of a noble family. The names 
 of some of his ancestors are intimately con 
 nected with many of the most interesting events 
 in the history of our country. Some of them 
 shed their blood during the Revolution, and 
 were martyrs in the cause of American inde 
 pendence. Others, in more recent times, won 
 honor and renown as soldiers, statesmen, and 
 orators. Notable among the latter was the 
 
56 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 poet s uncle, Robert Y. Hayne, Governor of 
 South Carolina, whose memorable contest with 
 the mighty Webster, of Massachusetts, in the 
 Senate of the United States, fills one of the most 
 brilliant chapters in the annals of our National 
 legislature. 
 
 The poet s father was an officer in the United 
 States Navy, and died at sea during his son s 
 infancy. The poet s mother was a member of 
 a distinguished South Carolina family, and a 
 lady of many excellent traits of character. 
 Hayne was educated in his native city and 
 graduated with honors from Charleston Col 
 lege. Possessing all the advantages which 
 wealth, high social position and unusually bril 
 liant intellectual gifts could bestow, his future 
 appeared to be a prospect of cloudless happiness. 
 His genius manifested itself at an early age, and 
 he soon became one of the brightest stars of that 
 galaxy of intellect, culture, and taste which in 
 cluded such names as John C. Calhoun, Legare, 
 Timrod, William Gilmore Simms, and others. 
 He was one of the founders and the editor of 
 Russell s Magazine, at Charleston, and con 
 tributed to a number of the prominent literary 
 periodicals of the day. In 1852 he married 
 Miss Mary Middleton Michel, a beautiful and 
 highly accomplished lady of Charleston, the 
 daughter of one of the most eminent physi 
 cians and surgeons of that city. His first volume 
 of poems was published in Boston in 1855, a 
 
Paul Hamilton Hayne 57 
 
 second volume was published in Charleston in 
 1857, and a third volume was published in 
 Boston in 1860. 
 
 When the war between the States began he 
 served on the staff of Governor Pickens, of 
 South Carolina. During the bombardment of 
 Charleston, Mr. Hayne s beautiful home, and 
 his large library, with many valuable heirlooms, 
 were destroyed by fire. At the close of the war, 
 with a few fragments saved from the wreck of 
 his fortune, he retired to an isolated place in the 
 "pine barrens," in the vicinity of Grovetown, 
 Georgia, sixteen miles from Augusta. Here 
 he resided with his family until his death. The 
 place is called "Copse Hill," and the rudely con 
 structed little cottage, which was his home and 
 literary workshop for over eighteen years, has 
 become a famous spot, hallowed by the glorify 
 ing glamour of Genius. 
 
 In a charming sonnet entitled "The Cottage 
 On The Hill," he has described his humble 
 home and its surroundings. In this secluded 
 spot, far from the mad whirl and tumult of the 
 world, with his devoted wife and gifted son 
 always near him, he, with indomitable spirit, 
 unwavering trust in God, and in close com 
 munion with nature, fought uncomplainingly 
 the terrible battle of life. Keeping his armor 
 bright and his sword unstained, he "fought the 
 good fight of faith," overcoming apparently 
 insuperable obstacles, and in spite of severe 
 
58 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 trials and keen disappointments, winning vic 
 tory at last, and a crown of unfading laurels. 
 
 His heroic spirit, his serene reliance upon the 
 goodness of God, and his faith in the ultimate 
 triumph of a strong, self-reliant soul over all 
 the misfortunes of life, are eloquently expressed 
 in his noble poem entitled "Lyric of Action." 
 By the way, a very pathetic story is connected 
 with this poem. A young man living in New 
 York, driven to despair by a series of misfor 
 tunes, determined to end his troubles by com 
 mitting suicide. He had completed all his 
 arrangements to do the terrible deed, when 
 accidentally, while looking over some private 
 papers, he came across a clipping from a news 
 paper containing this poem. The young man 
 read it through. It struck a chord in his heart, 
 the music of which thrilled him like the silvery 
 tones of trumpets that awaken a sleeping army, 
 and call it to prepare for battle. A change came 
 over the dark and hopeless spirit of his dream ; 
 the clouds rolled away from his brain, and the 
 sunshine of a new and brighter life suddenly 
 quickened his soul. He determined, then and 
 there, to turn over a new leaf in his history, to 
 cease brooding over the past, to stop playing 
 the coward, and to face the world and the future 
 like a brave man should. He prospered, and 
 several years afterwards this stranger wrote a 
 very touching letter to the poet, detailing the 
 circumstances just mentioned. With grateful 
 
Paul Hamilton Hayne 59 
 
 heart he thanked him for having written the 
 poem which was the means, under God, of sav 
 ing him from a suicide s grave. No event in 
 his life touched Mr. Hayne more deeply than 
 this, and whenever he mentioned it, he showed 
 how profoundly his feelings were affected by it. 
 
 His "Legends and Lyrics" appeared in 1872. 
 This volume contains the powerful and brilliant 
 poem called "Cambyses and the Macrobian 
 Bow," which he himself considered one of his 
 very best. Mrs. Hayne told me that it was his 
 favorite among all the poems of that class which 
 he had written. It is a dramatic poem of sus 
 tained strength, rich in oriental coloring and 
 vital with the varying play of passion. 
 
 King Cambyses, surrounded by his courtiers, 
 is reclining in luxurious ease, under the plane 
 trees. One of his courtiers, talking to his com 
 rades, is extolling the matchless skill of a 
 famous Bactrian archer in bow-craft. The 
 King, who had the reputation of being the 
 mightiest archer in his realm, grows hot with 
 envy as he listens to the recital of his rival s 
 powers as an archer. Rising from his couch 
 and addressing Prexaspes, the speaker, the 
 King, pointing toward the south, says : 
 
 "Seest thou, Prexaspes, yonder slender palm, 
 
 A mere wan shadow, quivering in the light, 
 
 Topped by a ghastly leaf-crown?" 
 
 and then asks him whether he thinks the famous 
 Bactrian, standing here, could with his shaft 
 
60 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 pierce a spot as large as a hand marked upon it. 
 The courtier answers that such a feat would be 
 beyond mortal skill. The King asks Prexaspes 
 whether he thinks that he, Cambyses, would 
 also fail. The trembling courtier, feeling a 
 presentiment of coming evil, cautiously inti 
 mates his doubt, and, craving the King s par 
 don, adds : 
 
 "But yester eve, amid the feast and dance, 
 Thou tarried st with the beakers overlong." 
 
 The King s eyes flashed with hate and anger. 
 He singles out one of his pages, a beautiful boy, 
 the son of Prexaspes, and orders the father to 
 bind the boy to the palm tree. Then he com 
 mands Prexaspes to fetch him the Macrobian 
 bow. 
 
 The child is fastened to the tree, and Cam 
 byses takes the bow. 
 
 "Slowly, sternly up 
 He reared it to the level of his sight, 
 Reared, and bent back its oaken massiveness, 
 Till the vast muscles, tough as grape vines, bulged 
 From naked arm and shoulder, and the horns 
 Of the fierce weapon groaning, almost met." 
 
 Casting a look of malignant hate at the trem 
 bling satrap, the King coolly says : 
 
 "Prexaspes, look, my aim is at the heart !" 
 
 The bolt flies and strikes its living mark. The 
 body of the child sinks quivering. The King, 
 
Paul Hamilton Hayne 61 
 
 clapping his hand on the shoulder of Prexaspes, 
 exclaims gleefully : 
 
 "Go thou, and tell me how that shaft hath sped." 
 
 The wretched father creeps step by step toward 
 his dead child. Cambyses, half-scornfully and 
 half-indifferently, leans upon his bow. The 
 father returns ; 
 
 "The old man s face was riven and white as death." 
 Making meek obeisance to the King, 
 
 "He smiled (oh, such a smile!) and feebly said: 
 What am I, mighty Master, what am I, 
 That I durst question my lord s strength and skill? 
 His arrows are like arrows of the god, 
 Egyptian Horus, and for proof, but now, 
 I felt a child s heart (once a child was mine, 
 Tis my lord s now and Death s) all mute and still. 
 Pierced by his shaft, and cloven, ye gods ! in twain! " 
 
 The King answers with a loud laugh, and when 
 his hideous merriment is over, he says : 
 
 " Thou art forgiven, said he, forgiven, old man ; 
 Only, when next these Persian dogs shall call 
 Cambyses drunkard, rise, Prexaspes, rise ! 
 And tell them how, and to what purpose once, 
 Once, on a morn which followed hot and wan 
 A night of monstrous revel and debauch, 
 Cambyses bent his huge Macrobian bow. " 
 
 In 1873 Mr. Hayne edited the collected poems 
 of his friend Henry Timrod, adding an inter 
 esting sketch of this unfortunate poet s life. 
 His tribute to his friend s genius is exquisitely 
 
62 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 tender, graceful, and sympathetic. In 1875 
 Air. Hayne published another book of poems, 
 which embraced his fine narrative poem "The 
 Mountain of the Lovers." His complete Poet 
 ical Works were issued from the press of Loth- 
 rop & Co., Boston, in 1882, in a large and ele 
 gant volume, with numerous fine illustrations. 
 The charming biographical sketch of the author 
 in this volume was written by Mrs. Margaret J. 
 Preston, of Virginia. However, a number of 
 his most beautiful poems were written after the 
 publication of this sumptuous volume, for 
 instance the "Savannah Sesqui-Centennial 
 Ode/ the "Ode for the Charleston Centennial 
 Celebration," and many notable minor poems 
 and lyrics. In the Charleston Centennial Ode, 
 Hayne pays the following pathetic tribute to his 
 beautiful native city: 
 
 "O, City of my Father s love! beside whose streamlets 
 
 straying, 
 My boyish feet, to jocund tunes, have gone so oft 
 
 a-Maying ; 
 O, City of ancestral graves! each clod a sacred 
 
 treasure 
 What marvel that one mournful chord wails through 
 
 this dying measure ? 
 The sea-songs come, the sea-songs go across thine ocean 
 
 reaches, 
 
 The^sea-tides ebb, the sea-tides flow far up thy glitter 
 ing beaches ; 
 Not mine to draw a new-born hope from waves so 
 
 brightly glowing, 
 Not mine to hear in deep ning winds a trump of onset 
 
 blowing! 
 
Paul Hamilton Hayne 63 
 
 Ah! no! across the flow, half-welcome, half-appalling, 
 I catch the voices of the dead from twilight verges 
 
 calling ; 
 The shadows grow more gray that shroud this strange 
 
 outworn existence. 
 
 "Quaint city of my youth, farewell ! no more these eyes 
 
 may quiver, 
 Dazed by the glint of surf and sail on flickering bar or 
 
 river, 
 
 No more these weary limbs may own the soul s imperi 
 ous order, 
 To bear me where the sun-caps flash beyond the billowy 
 
 border ! 
 Brave city of my youth, farewell ! when safe from 
 
 midday riot, 
 Kissed by the slumberous star that sways her lotus-land 
 
 of quiet, 
 I shall see through half-closed lids thy moonlight 
 
 beauty beaming, 
 And hear St. Michael s bells swoon down the tides of 
 
 dreaming!" 
 
 The opening lines of his Sesqui-Centennial 
 Ode, written for the celebration of the one 
 hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the found 
 ing of Savannah, by Oglethorpe, are in the 
 poet s best vein, and strike the keynote of a 
 masterly production: 
 
 "Man clings, we know, to his ancestral clods ; 
 Yet are there those who tower like potent gods 
 Above their brethren, on whose brows the sign 
 Of some star-blazoned splendor burns divine ! 
 
 "In whom the harshness of an earthly leaven, 
 Is softened by the mystic balm of heaven ; 
 Whose epic fates through broad, deep currents roll, 
 Urged by the impulse of a steadfast soul, 
 Toward some grand Purpose and beneficent goal ; 
 
64 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 Souls with a large look southward, and benign, 
 Their lives harmonious held in golden tune 
 With Duty s keynote sounding down the bars 
 Of the high-ordered music of the stars ; 
 Forever open to the liberal noon 
 Of God, of Nature, of Humanity ! 
 
 "Ah, such was he 
 In whose wise mind the seed 
 Of a great Thought lay ripening into Deed, 
 Slowly developed through long, toilful years, 
 Nurtured by blood and sanctified by tears, 
 Clear blood, heroic tears that left no trace 
 Of hopeless anguish on the weeper s face ; 
 Until there waved from changeful hour to hour, 
 The soptless petals of a perfect flower ; 
 Rife with all beauty, flushed by power and health, 
 This Rose of States, our Georgian commonwealth." 
 
 One of his last was that remarkably serene 
 and touching poem entitled "Face to Face," 
 which appeared in Harper s Magazine, only a 
 few weeks before his death, July 6, 1886. 
 
 The following poem in memory of Richard 
 Grant White, the distinguished Shakespearian 
 scholar, is a fine example of the poet s commem 
 orative verse : 
 
 "His voice I had not heard, or seen his face, 
 Yet have I marked all features of his mind 
 
 Their stalwart frankness and their cultured grace 
 And known what largess he has left mankind ; 
 
 Wise thoughts, pure thoughts, a style as crystal clear 
 
 As the still waters of a Zetland mere. 
 
 "His genius, molded in a form unique, 
 
 (Which shuddered at the touch of Commonplace ), 
 Held in a fair wedlock, proldenly combined. 
 Modern forthrightness with a charm antique, 
 A strength all Saxon and a depth half Greek. 
 
Paul Hamilton Hayne 65 
 
 "And for the rest, he bore his spirit high, 
 
 Well-poised, serene, unwavering, even as one 
 Who, tho earth-bound, would rather front the sky, 
 
 And fiery blazon of the noonday sun 
 Than crouch in shades of cool humanity, 
 While the great Triumphs of the world sweep by. 
 
 "He kept the royal ermine of his pride 
 
 Stainless for his that fast-decreasing clan, 
 
 Wherein the Sage and Scholar strives to lift 
 
 Above our_ reckless age s sordid drift 
 Above his shallow scorn or furious ban 
 
 Those courtly virtues only fools deride, 
 Which stamp the heaven-elected Gentleman. 
 
 "Well were his nature and his toils allied 
 
 Large both and liberal ! tis no marvel then, 
 He walked in such security of ease 
 Through Shakespeare s world of monarchs and great 
 
 men 
 A kingly Realm he loved and magnified. 
 
 "Ah ! in that heavenly Country over seas 
 We wot not of, all shadow-wreathed and dim 
 I trust (are not its mansions manifold?) 
 
 I trust a happy Home remains for him, 
 Wherein the wise Grammarians born of old, 
 Scholars and Poets, and bright souls of mark, 
 Who starred the blackness of the ancient Dark, 
 May chorus welcome to the nightless lands 
 And foremost there (upon his smiling face, 
 The softened sweetness of that sacred place), 
 His Master Shakespeare, with warm, outstretched 
 hands !" 
 
 The poet s remains were buried in the old 
 cemetery at Augusta, close to the spot which 
 holds the ashes of Richard Henry Wilde, 
 author of the famous lyric, "My Life Is Like a 
 Summer Rose" ; and now by his side rests the 
 body of his beloved and faithful wife insepa- 
 
66 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 rable in life, inseparable in death. The poet s 
 funeral was a memorable one. The whole city 
 was in mourning. The people not only admired 
 him as a poet, but also loved him as a man 
 whose life illustrated the best qualities of the 
 chivalrous race from which he sprang, for his 
 heart was constantly animated by a passionate 
 and insistent love for the true, the good, and 
 the beautiful. A very touching feature of the 
 funeral-day was the presence of several thou 
 sand children, who lined the streets as the 
 sorrowful procession passed on its way to the 
 cemetery. Their presence testified to their love 
 for their distinguished friend, and verified the 
 sweet sentiment of one of his own lines : 
 
 "The children loved him, so he sleeps in peace." 
 
 The lyre of every true poet breathes pure and 
 tender music when he strikes its strings in praise 
 of children, or in memory of the scenes, the 
 images, the hopes and fears, the joys and fleet 
 ing sorrows of childhood s days. I am always 
 tempted to weigh the worth of a poet s popu 
 larity, that is to say, the power he possesses to 
 write himself into the hearts and homes of men, 
 by the way in which he treats themes that con 
 cern childhood, or sings to or about children. 
 I judge him by the spiritual insight he has of 
 a child s soul ; by the power with which he 
 pictures the glow, the color, the ethereal light 
 and shade of the mysterious world that shines 
 
Paul Hamilton Hayne 67 
 
 so serenely from the liquid depths of a child s 
 eyes ; for the light that beams from these eyes 
 comes from a source much nearer to the star- 
 lands of Peace and Love than is the source from 
 whence we men and women of the world receive 
 our spiritual illumination. Only a true and 
 largely gifted poet can do this. It requires per 
 fection of art; simplicity without barrenness, 
 strength, finely proportioned with grace; per 
 spicuity; originality of conception; thought 
 sanctified by genuine emotion; in a word, it 
 requires him to have the rare power that can 
 send a noble thought from his heart straight 
 into and through the heart of another, as an 
 arrow speeds from the bow to the mark. Hayne 
 had this excellence. He loved children, he 
 revered them both for what they are and what 
 they suggest simplicity, purity, innocence, 
 nearness to God, all the qualities the lack of 
 whose blessed influence we so sorely feel as we 
 become hardened and seared in the fierce strug 
 gle with the world, till, finally, the early fra 
 grance and freshness of heart and soul have 
 passed away, like the sweetness and beauty of 
 a flower when the winds of winter have swept 
 over it, and cast it from its stem. In the tender 
 words of Whittier himself a poet who has 
 rightful claims to the rare laurels of a "child s 
 poet" 
 
 "We need love s tender lessons taught, 
 
 As only weakness can; 
 God hath his small interpreters 
 The child must teach the man. 
 
68 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 "We wander wide through evil years, 
 
 Our eyes of faith grow dim ; 
 But he is freshest from his hands, 
 And nearest unto Him." 
 
 Yes, children are interpreters, teachers, and "of 
 such is the Kingdom of Heaven." Fresh from 
 God s hands, and so near to Him, why should 
 they not teach us what we are all so apt to for 
 get love, gentleness, charity, sincerity, purity, 
 faith. Do we ever realize how hard it is to 
 break the faith of a child? Ought we not to 
 become as one of these little ones? Could we 
 ask a rarer gift from our Heavenly Father ? It 
 was in this spirit that Hayne s poems of and 
 for children were written. Is it any wonder 
 "the children loved him" ? As an example of 
 the grace and pathetic tenderness characteristic 
 of Hayne s verse on themes devoted to the illus 
 tration of child-life, or personally dedicated, 
 and which constitutes a very charming part of 
 the poet s complete w r orks, the following poem 
 is reproduced here; it was addressed to my 
 little daughter, some years before her death : 
 
 "A CHILD S HOROSCOPE. 
 "To IDA M. HUBNER, ATLANTA, GEORGIA. 
 
 "What is it in her frank young face 
 Which, more than beauty, more than grace, 
 Holds in its warm and strong control 
 The instinctive homage of my soul? 
 
Paul Hamilton Hayne 69 
 
 "A spirit constant, faithful, high, 
 Shines deeply in her earnest eye, 
 And ah ! her tranquil lips are fraught 
 With talismans of truthful thought! 
 
 "Child-woman ! hath her morn too soon 
 Been touched by prophecies of noon? 
 For something sad, tho scarce defined, 
 Girds the grave bastions of her mind ; 
 
 "But, rippling thro the outworks fold, 
 Her life is still a stream of gold; 
 A stream that, with harmonious sound, 
 Shall force, some day, its narrow bound, 
 
 "And in its tide of stainless flame, 
 May mirror the clear stars of fame ! 
 Dear child ! the genius of your birth 
 Is winged by heaven, if wrought of earth ; 
 
 "A Saxon steadfastness of will, 
 A bucklered heart to conquer ill ; 
 A calm defiance turned on those, 
 Who, unprovoked, would be your foes ; 
 
 "A temper brave, and unsubdued 
 By passion s fierce and fiery brood 
 These heavenly charms shall vanquish strife, 
 And round with peace a noble life ! 
 
 "Behold your horoscope ! But now, 
 Darling! I kiss your lifted brow, 
 And feel your placid pulses rest 
 Sweetly, as on a father s breast ! 
 
 "Your little hand you fold in mine, 
 And o er us steals a calm divine, 
 Wherein the past and future fade ! 
 I only know, my loving maid, 
 Is here (alas, that we must part!) 
 Is here, clasped closely, heart to heart !" 
 
70 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 Thirty of his poems for children are to be 
 found in the complete edition of his poems 
 (Lothrop & Co., Boston, 1882). 
 
 Six years after Hayne s death his faithful 
 wife followed him into the realm of everlasting 
 happiness. These intervening years were de 
 voted by her to his memory, and to plans for 
 the extension and perpetuation of his fame, and 
 to motherly duties in behalf of an only child, 
 their gifted son William. A nobler woman 
 than Mrs. Hayne never lived. Her admiration 
 for her distinguished husband amounted almost 
 to worship. Never were two souls more com 
 pletely blended, never did two hearts more 
 truly "beat as one." She was the poet s 
 guardian angel, his counsellor, his inspiration. 
 Their married life was always an exquisitely 
 sweet and tender love-song, sometimes swelling 
 into the majestic music of an anthem rising 
 far above the roar and riot of the world, some 
 times it became a battle-hymn, ringing trium 
 phantly amid the terrible conflict with adversity 
 in its crudest shapes, against which they were 
 forced to battle for years. It is of her he sings 
 in his "Love s Autumn." 
 
 I shall not attempt an elaborate criticism of 
 the qualities of Mr. Hayne s genius, or endeavor 
 to define his standing relative to other poets. 
 In this connection the words of Mrs. Preston, 
 with which she concludes her sketch of him, will 
 be appropriate : 
 
Paul Hamilton Hayne 71 / 
 
 "It were superfluous to enter upon any criti 
 cism of his poems, nor is this the place for it. 
 They are left with the reader who, if he cannot 
 of himself find therein the aromatic freshness 
 of the woods the swaying incense of the 
 Cathedral-like aisles of pines; the sough of 
 dying summer winds ; the glint of lovely pools, 
 and the brooding notes of leaf-hidden mocking 
 birds would not be able to discern them, how 
 ever carefully the critic might point them out." 
 
 He was honored by the warm friendship and 
 the candid admiration of some of the most 
 famous literary men of Europe, and of our own 
 country. Among his constant correspondents 
 abroad were Charles Reade, Black, Mackey, 
 Blackmore, Wilkie Collins, Marston, and Swin 
 burne. Tennyson spoke of him as the finest 
 sonnet-writer in America. Grimm, of Ger 
 many, praised him enthusiastically, and Victor 
 Hugo placed him in the front rank of American 
 poets. He enjoyed the friendship of Holmes, 
 Stoddard, Whittier, and Longfellow, and occa 
 sionally was an honored guest in their homes. 
 
 In Hayne, indisputably, the man was the 
 poet. "His manhood was reflected in his poetry. 
 Gentle, modest, refined, sensitive he was, but 
 he was also brave as Caesar. In morals, as in 
 art, his standards were the highest, and he 
 lived fully up to these. He was the friend of the 
 poor and lowly, the champion of the oppressed. 
 He never turned a beggar from his door, and 
 
72 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 would share his last crust of bread with a 
 hungry tramp. Though sometimes imposed 
 upon, he would not allow his faith in humanity 
 to be shaken thereby, and always had a good 
 word to say in behalf of the most abject of his 
 fellow-creatures. 
 
 In his art he was almost painfully sensitive 
 to the obligations imposed upon him by his 
 Creator, in bestowing upon him the sacred gift 
 of Song, through which he interpreted the mys 
 teries of Nature, and portrayed the heart and 
 soul-life of his fellow-men. The strongest 
 and most beautiful of all the fine qualities of 
 his character was his Christian faith; his 
 immovable trust in the Saviour of the world; 
 his absolute belief in the immortality of the 
 soul. His testimony as to the truth of these 
 facts, while on his death-bed, was profoundly 
 pathetic and eloquent. Among his last audible 
 words was a message to his friend, the late 
 Philip Bourke Marston, the blind English 
 poet, who did not believe in the resurrection. 
 Mr. Hayne whispered to his wife, "Give my 
 love to Marston tell him to meet me there," 
 feebly pointing his finger heavenward. "But he 
 does not believe. Shall I tell him to believe in 
 Christ, the Resurrection and the Life?" said 
 Mrs. Hayne. With intense earnestness the 
 dying poet replied, "Oh yes ! Oh yes !" 
 
 I shall never forget this thrilling scene; nor 
 can anything obliterate the impression which 
 
Paul Hamilton rlayne 73 
 
 his burning and inspired words made upon my 
 heart as I sat by the bedside through the long, 
 sorrowful hours of that last night of the poet s 
 life on earth ; and the memory of the days which 
 I was privileged to spend at Copse Hill is a 
 precious legacy to me. 
 
 Our correspondence extended over a period 
 of nearly sixteen years. A few extracts from 
 the poet s letters will, I trust, be found interest 
 ing. \hey will show his liberal spirit ; his broad 
 views of life and of men; his keen, polished 
 intellect, and his high ideals as a poet and as a 
 man. Speaking of his aims and motives in 
 poetic work, he writes : 
 
 The older I grow, the more truly I yearn 
 to come near and to rouse the great heart of 
 humanity to elevate, comfort, and console the 
 lives of my fellow-creatures. To illustrate the 
 Beautiful, to sing of the Ideal in its loftiest 
 phases these are aims worthy of any poet ; but 
 to bind the broken heart, or stimulate the 
 despondent spirit, or even to celebrate the 
 triumphs of homely Toil (so that Toil shall be 
 winged for future stronger efforts) are nobler 
 achievements still." 
 
 Again he says : 
 
 "In literary immortality except as materi 
 ally modified in meaning I have no faith. A 
 few clarion names and golden threads of song, 
 may truly survive for a long time, but their term 
 
74 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 of existence must also arrive. Verily, as old 
 Shirley hath it : 
 
 " Only the actions of the just 
 
 Smell sweet, and blossom in the dust; 
 
 and I am by no means certain, sometimes, 
 whether even this holds good, except in its high 
 est spiritual sense. How many a great and good 
 man has gone to his grave, bedewed by a 
 nation s tears to be comparatively forgotten 
 in a few decades." 
 
 On hearing of the death of Longfellow he 
 paid this noble tribute to the poet s memory : 
 
 "The world loved that man, as few of our 
 kind have ever been loved before; and the 
 reason is obvious Longfellow was, what not 
 too many are nowadays, a genuine and perfect 
 gentleman ! Despite a fame which had spread 
 over three- fourths of our globe ; despite wealth, 
 position, the flattery of unnumbered multitudes, 
 often growing into adulation, he kept both the 
 whiteness and the humility of his spirit, recog 
 nizing, like Tennyson, the comparative noth 
 ingness of mortal renown, and hearing always 
 the roll/ the awful roll of ages/ And he was 
 equally considerate to the humblest and loftiest 
 of mankind." 
 
 Referring to the untimely death of Sidney 
 Lanier, which affected him profoundly, and for 
 whose splendid genius he had great admiration, 
 he writes : 
 
Paul Hamilton Hayne 75 
 
 "He had so much work to do, it does seem 
 mysterious that he should have been thus sud 
 denly called away. Yet, biography is full of 
 just such cases. We dwell in a world of riddles, 
 seeing through a glass darkly. One must 
 either trust in a higher Power, unquestioningly, 
 or simply despair! For my part, I prefer to 
 trust." 
 
 In another letter occurs the following tender 
 allusion to his noble wife: 
 
 "Indeed I should have been next to nothing 
 without her, and there is not a day, nor an hour, 
 wherein I fail to feel my own unworthiness by 
 the side of her absolute unselfish goodness and 
 elevation of character, and her devoted love." 
 
 Alluding to his constant physical suffering, 
 he says, in a letter written many years ago : 
 
 "Yet, thanks to our merciful God, I have 
 determination and vim sufficient to enable me 
 to labor in my vocation, and in harness (intel 
 lectual harness, at all events) I shall die! My 
 constant prayer is somewhat like that of the 
 old Norseman, who beseeched Odin to save 
 him from a cow s death ; i. e., the long suffer 
 ing of the bed-ridden invalid. Nevertheless, 
 God s will be done." 
 
 Toward the latter years of his life the feel 
 ing that his death would be sudden grew upon 
 him constantly. He concludes a hurriedly 
 written note to me as follows : 
 
76 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 "I am a sick man, and mark my word, I will 
 die some day suddenly. What matter? My 
 work is finished in this world." 
 
 It was doubtless while in the shadow of 
 moods like this that he wrote the touchingly 
 sad yet lofty and serene lyric entitled "In Har 
 bor." 
 
 Here is a bit of excellent criticism on an 
 author who occupies a warm place in the hearts 
 of all who admire pure morality and conse 
 crated love, combined with genius speaking 
 of Miss Mitford he says : 
 
 "I, too, am very fond of her as an author, and 
 I may add as a woman of unquestionable 
 genius, and the noblest, pluckiest character. Do 
 you know of anything in biography more ad 
 mirable than her attitude toward her father? 
 The tender, unselfish one may say heroic 
 affection which caused her to surround one of 
 the shallowest, vainest, most nauseously egotis 
 tical of men, with the glamour of profoundest 
 admiration and loving sympathy, may be ridi 
 culed by some as mere blind weakness, but to 
 my mind, it was beautiful exceedingly, con 
 sidered as the direct outcome of her own incom 
 parable feminine sweetness and grace. Her 
 letters, and the answers to them, in the volume 
 you refer to, constitute a remarkably valuable 
 series. Miss Mitford s critical instincts were 
 generally correct, as witness her invariable and 
 hearty appreciation of Walter Scott, and other 
 
Paul Hamilton Hayne 77 
 
 first-class writers; and yet, it is true that she 
 blundered awfully sometimes what could be 
 more amazingly shallow, and a trifle imperti 
 nent, than her depreciation of Thackeray, es 
 pecially of his chef d ceuvre, Esmond? Miss 
 Mitford s verse has never struck me as pos 
 sessing the qualities of perpetuity; but her 
 Village and prose-works of a similar scope, 
 are worthy to rank with the ablest performances 
 of that kind in our language." 
 
 The following philosophic reflection on the 
 influence of domestic affinity is well worth 
 studying, as it furnishes, perhaps, a partial 
 answer to the question as to the cause of con 
 nubial discord, quite frequently found in the 
 domestic history of some of the world s great 
 est geniuses : 
 
 "Ah, me," he writes, "how many a man of 
 genius (especially esthetic genius) has been 
 ruined by the lack of household help and under 
 standing! I firmly believe that even Byron 
 would have developed into quite another and a 
 nobler character if his consort had been a differ 
 ent woman. She had excellent qualities, no 
 doubt, but absolute Cimmerian darkness en 
 veloped her mind, so far as her knowledge of 
 Byron s nature and peculiar capabilities was 
 concerned. For instance, she was densely, 
 impenetrably stupid in regard to all display of 
 humor or wit, and her husband was thus 
 tempted to humbug her by all kinds of stories 
 
78 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 about himself, his abnormal wickedness and 
 tremendous depravity, examples of which (of 
 course all untrue and invented on the spur of 
 the moment) Madame implicitly believed, and 
 forty years after poured into the ears of Mrs. 
 Beecher Stowe." 
 
 His opinion of Aldrich s poetry is very 
 candidly expressed: 
 
 "For Aldrich s art, indeed, I have the pro- 
 foundest admiration. He is a model in this 
 respect. There is a lamentable lack, however, 
 in his poetry of the grander elements of emotion 
 and passion. Seldom, if ever, do his lyrics take 
 hold of the deeper strings of one s heart. Here 
 in Lowell towers above him; so does Long 
 fellow ; so again do Whittier, Stoddard, and not 
 a few others, yet Aldrich s self-knowledge, his 
 unerring consciousness of his own limitations, 
 seems in itself genius." 
 
 Bret Harte, as a poet, did not impress him 
 favorably ; he says : 
 
 "Bret Harte, no doubt, possesses a thin vein 
 of genius ; but it appears to me he has already 
 nearly worked it out. His poems (the serious 
 ones) are chiefly echoes, and, as for his humor 
 ous verse (the Heathen Chinee/ etc.) I think 
 him absurdly overrated." 
 
 Speaking of Maurice Thompson s "Songs of 
 Fair Weather," he says: 
 
 "I am familiar with Thompson s poetry, and 
 consider it very true and admirable verse; 
 
Paul Hamilton Hayne 79 
 
 chiefly of the wholesome, outdoor, realistic sort ; 
 it is full of breezes and fragrant air, and the 
 lusty revelry of wave and wind. On occasions 
 he can be delicately imaginative and artistic, 
 as witness his really exquisite poem Diana. 
 
 Of the South s most popular author, the ever 
 delightful "Uncle Remus," admired by all the 
 world Joel Chandler Harris he writes : 
 
 "I am heartily glad to hear of Harris s suc 
 cess. He richly deserves it. His genius, 
 especially in the delineation of the negro 
 character, is absolute. I predicted his success." 
 
 He calls Mrs. Margaret J. Preston the most 
 gifted of the Southern female poets, and says : 
 
 "Her heart is as warm and cordial as her 
 mind is comprehensive, brilliant, and creative. 
 The South, I am sorry to admit, does not even 
 begin to appreciate her genius, nor what she 
 has done for her section in art." 
 
 He had an irrepressible longing to visit 
 Europe, particularly England, and behold, face 
 to face, his friends there. "The utter sunsetting 
 of my last hope of ever going abroad," as he 
 expressed it, depressed him greatly. "I thought 
 this hope had died previously," he writes, "but 
 I was mistaken. Only now has it given up its 
 final breath, and the pang is bitter. Let me 
 not complain, however. Fate seems to have 
 determined that I shall die, as I have lived for 
 a quarter of a century, among the solitudes of 
 the Pine Barrens. I have endured many things 
 I can endure this." 
 
80 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 But the solitudes of the Pine Barrens, to 
 which Fate had exiled him, these apparently 
 lonely regions, were, nevertheless, sources of 
 spiritual delight to him, and under the trans 
 figuring glamour of poesy were pictured by him 
 as landscapes of enchanting loveliness ; witness, 
 for instance, his fine and picturesque poem 
 descriptive of this very same wearisome waste, 
 when illuminated by the glory of sunset; it is 
 in his best vein and is called "In the Pine Bar 
 rens." This poem offers another illustration of 
 the fact that there is something divinely power 
 ful in "the imagination and the poet s dream," 
 a power which can transform a monotonous 
 waste into a paradise, and change even the com 
 monest things, frequently, into "a thing of 
 beauty and a joy forever." 
 
 He was exceedingly fond of profound 
 scholastic studies. "At present," he writes, "I 
 am studying certain rather advanced books 
 upon a very old and favorite subject of mine 
 astronomy. What a topic ! Growing in fasci 
 nation as one advances deeper and deeper into 
 the Cosmos. But the fascination becomes pain 
 ful, nay, awful, at last. To confront the two 
 infinites of Time and Space, is to make the soul 
 reel upon its pedestal ! Then, this earth of ours 
 which for ages man regarded with such enor 
 mous complacency as the center of Creation 
 turns out to be a miserable little hundreth-rate 
 pigmy of a planet; a mere revolving mite, half 
 
Paul Hamilton Hayne 81 
 
 lost, it would seem, among the more majestic 
 worlds. There are some startling questions in 
 this connection touching Theology; but, mark 
 you, the Omnipotent is also the Omnipresent. 
 Physical dimensions are as nothing, possibly, 
 in His eye. 
 
 "Where dwells the Eternal? Past Uranian heights, 
 All heights of grandeur, and all gulfs of gloom? 
 Yea ! but He dwells no less where April lights 
 Dance round the daisy, and the jessamine bloom." 
 
 Some years ago the poet s gifted son, Wil 
 liam Hayne, whose book of charming poems 
 entitled "Sylvan Lyrics" has given him a con 
 spicuous place among our native poets, in 
 an interesting magazine article described his 
 father s methods of composition ; among other 
 things he said : 
 
 "The poetic impulse 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 record the lines, or frag 
 ments of lines, that claimed release from his 
 brain/ 
 
 I can bear witness to the truth of this state 
 ment. On one of my visits to Copse Hill, Mr. 
 Hayne presented me with a copy of Swinburne s 
 "Atalanta in Calydon," which the author had 
 sent him from London. Some weeks afterward, 
 while I was turning the leaves of the book, I 
 found on the inside of the cover the first 
 
82 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 draughts of one of Mr. Hayne s poems, written 
 with a pencil. The many erasures, interlinea 
 tions, and changes in words made the reading of 
 the lines a very difficult matter. Evidently 
 while the poet was walking to and fro in his 
 little library, or under the trees, with this book 
 in his hand, the inspiration came upon him, and 
 with his pencil he rapidly jotted down and then 
 hastily revised the first draught of one of his 
 beautiful sonnets. 
 
 In the spring of 1889 the "Paul Hayne 
 Memorial Chapel" was completed at Grove- 
 town, and dedicated with appropriate cere 
 monies. The church is situated in a grove 
 of pines, not far from Copse Hill. It was 
 erected with funds contributed by friends and 
 admirers of the poet in this country and in 
 Europe. Certainly no American poet has had 
 a more beautiful tribute paid to his memory, or 
 one more deserved. 
 
FACING PAGE 
 
HENRY TIMROD 
 
 Poet ! if still, where now thy spirit is, 
 
 Thou mayest be permitted to look back 
 
 Upon thine earth-life s brief, but thorny track, 
 
 So stained with blood-drops of thine agonies, 
 
 Methinks a glint of joy, not all unmeet 
 
 Even for the glory of thy heavenly state, 
 
 Thrills thee, to see the world at last, though late, 
 
 Laying her love-gift gladly at thy feet ; 
 
 Yes, thou hast triumphed ; happy soul ! look down, 
 
 Behold, how thy life s sorrow-darkened days 
 
 Have turned to stars, that glorify thy grave, 
 
 And how, to pay for gifts thy genius gave, 
 
 Within this book, as in a shrine, men place 
 
 The rarest jewels of thy poet s crown. 
 
 (Written in a volume of the Memorial edition of 
 Timrod s poems.) 
 
 Henry Timrod, whom Richard Henry Stod- 
 dard called "the ablest poet that the South had 
 yet produced," and of whom Paul Hayne, in 
 still ampler praise, said that he was "one of the 
 truest and sweetest singers this country has 
 given to the world," was born in Charleston, 
 South Carolina, December 8, 1829. His father, 
 William Henry Timrod, of German descent, 
 was a highly esteemed citizen, noted for the 
 excellence of his character and cultivated intel 
 lect. He was also a poet of ability, and some of 
 his published poems won public favor; of his 
 
84 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 "Ode to Time/ Washington Irving said, "Tom 
 Moore could have written no finer lyric." 
 Evidently Henry inherited from his father, to 
 some extent, his genius for poetry. His 
 mother, of Scotch-Irish descent, was a woman 
 of liberal culture, and most amiable character. 
 She was passionately fond of Nature in all its 
 moods and manifestations, and it was from 
 her that the future singer received that sensi 
 tive taste for the beautiful, the love of the charm 
 of out-door life, the ever- ready power to inter 
 pret and express the meaning, the mysterious 
 suggestiveness of Nature, which distinguishes 
 Timrod s poetry. 
 
 Timrod received his primary education in 
 one of the best schools of his native city. One 
 of his schoolmates was Paul Hamilton Hayne, 
 who, as his intimate and life-long friend, gives 
 testimony to Timrod s fine character, and to 
 the brilliancy of his genius, in the memoir Paul 
 Hayne wrote for the volume of Timrod s col 
 lected poems, published in 1873. 
 
 Timrod was a diligent and ambitious student, 
 and when about seventeen years of age he 
 entered the University of Georgia, at Athens. 
 His poetical powers were exercised even then, 
 especially in love-songs, which found their way 
 into print chiefly through the columns of a 
 Charleston journal. 
 
 Because of the inability of his father to sup 
 port him longer at the University, and partly 
 
Henry Timrod 85 
 
 on account of his delicate health, Timrod was 
 forced to leave the University before he could 
 graduate. He then began the study of law at 
 Charleston, in the office of the distinguished 
 jurist, James L. Pettigru, but soon found out 
 that he was not fitted for a profession so uncon 
 genial to him. He gave up his law studies, and 
 became a teacher. His duties as a tutor in the 
 family of a rich South Carolina planter gave 
 him leisure to woo the poetic muse, and the con 
 tents of a fine library were also happily at his 
 disposal. At intervals he would visit Charles 
 ton, where he had many warm friends, and a 
 choice circle of congenial spirits were always 
 delighted to have this gentle and richly gifted 
 youth in their midst. 
 
 In Russell s Magazine, a distinctively South 
 ern literary publication, which flourished for a 
 short time in Charleston, at that period, 
 appeared some of Timrod s best poems and son 
 nets. These and some other poems were finally 
 collected into a small volume and published by 
 Ticknor & Fields, of Boston, in 1860. 
 
 When the war between the States began he 
 volunteered his services in defense of his State, 
 but his enfeebled health prevented him from 
 enduring the hardships of a soldier s life in 
 the ranks, and he remained in Charleston during 
 the first year of the war, busy, however, with 
 his pen, writing poems and songfs that fired the 
 hearts of his countrymen by their fervid patriot- 
 
86 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 ism and impassionate melody, thus, as has been 
 aptly said, "Serving his country more effectu 
 ally with the pen than he could have served her 
 with the sword." He then became a war corre 
 spondent for the Charleston Mercury. Unable 
 to stand the hard life of camps, he returned to 
 Columbia, South Carolina, where he became 
 editor of the South Carolinian. He was married 
 in 1864 to Miss Katie Goodwin, a charming 
 young English lady, whose picture, from its 
 frame of jeweled words, and its background of 
 a lovely rural English landscape, smiles out 
 upon us in his beautiful idyl "Katie." 
 
 A son blessed the union of these two happy 
 hearts, but lived only a few months. The blow 
 nearly broke the heart of the poet. From that 
 time on disaster "followed fast and faster," and 
 to his domestic affliction and the constantly 
 increasing physical debility the insidious un 
 dermining of consumption were added the 
 culminating horrors of war. The Federal army 
 was devastating the South. Columbia, the 
 capital of South Carolina, utterly undefended, 
 was taken and burned by order of General 
 Sherman. When the simoon of disaster had 
 passed over the doomed city its inhabitants were 
 left to their fate, penniless, and wandering amid 
 the smoking ruins of their homes, trying to 
 save what they could from the wreck, with 
 starvation staring them in the face daily. In 
 common with his fellow-citizens, Timrod suf- 
 
Henry Timrod 87 
 
 fered woefully. Nothing can more vividly 
 describe the situation than the occasional letters 
 he wrote to his friend Hayne. They are full 
 of pathos and tears, and the grim humor which 
 now and then flashes through the lines only 
 adds to the sombreness and terror of the pic 
 ture. In one of his letters he says : 
 
 "We have lived for a long period, and are 
 still living, on the proceeds of the gradual sale 
 of furniture and silver plate. We have let me 
 see yes, we have eaten two silver pitchers, 
 one or two dozen silver forks, several sofas, in 
 numerable chairs, and a huge bedstead ! In a 
 forlorn hope I forwarded some poems to North 
 ern periodicals, and in every instance they were 
 coldly declined. 
 
 "As for supporting myself and large family 
 wife, mother, sister and nieces, by literary 
 work tis utterly preposterous. Little Jack 
 Horner who sang for his supper and got his 
 plum-cake, was a far more lucky minstrel than 
 I am. To confess the truth, my dear Paul, I not 
 only feel that I can write no more verse, but I 
 am perfectly indifferent to the fate of what I 
 have already composed. I would consign every 
 line of it to eternal oblivion for one hundred 
 dollars in hand." 
 
 In another letter he says : 
 
 "You ask me to tell you my story for the last 
 year. I can embody it all in a few words : beg 
 gary, starvation, death, bitter grief, utter want 
 of hope !" 
 
88 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 It is but justice to say that the unfortunate 
 poet still had many warm friends and neighbors, 
 who did all they could to help him and to cheer 
 him by their sympathy, sharing the few re 
 sources that were still left to them with him, 
 and with kindness born of common calamity, 
 nobly endured, made the declining days of the 
 suffering and dying poet as bearable as possible. 
 
 With an occasional feeble effort to better 
 his condition by suitable employment, which 
 resulted only in temporary relief, and occasional 
 brief visits to his friend Hayne, at Copse Hill, 
 and trips to Charleston, the grim story draws 
 to an end. His hemorrhages became more fre 
 quent, and he was soon confined to his bed. 
 Recovery was impossible. He met the fateful 
 messenger Death with resignation and the 
 fortitude of a Christian. His loved ones waited 
 tenderly by his bedside. In Hayne s memoir 
 the last hours of the dying poet are touchingly 
 described. To his sister he said : 
 
 "Do you remember that little poem of mine : 
 
 "Somewhere on this earthly planet, 
 
 In the dust of flowers to be, 
 In the dew-drop, in the sunshine, 
 Waits a solemn hour for me 
 
 Now that hour, which then seemed so far away, 
 has come. May I be able to say, thanks be to 
 God who giveth us the victory, through our 
 Lord Jesus Christ." 
 
Henry Timrod 89 
 
 The prophecy contained in the poem came 
 true. As the dawn-light of the eighth day of 
 October, 1867, began to pour its rosy splendor 
 into the room, the soul of the poet passed away, 
 and the aching heart was at rest forever. 
 
 His remains were buried by the side of his 
 infant son s, in Trinity churchyard, at Colum 
 bia. In the words of Paul Hayne: 
 
 "So now I leave him, high exalted, far 
 Beyond all memory of earth s guilt or guile ; 
 Hark! tis his voice of cheer, 
 
 Dropping, methinks, from some mysterious star: 
 His face I see, and on his face a smile !" 
 
 Timrod, as a true son of the South, naturally 
 was her ardent eulogist, and the chivalric 
 champion of her cause, in weal or woe. The 
 poems and songs written by him during the 
 civil war, can be matched but rarely in the 
 effusions of his contemporary bards, and cer 
 tainly none excel his in depth and fervor of feel 
 ing, in the high flight of fancy, and the bold, 
 clarion-clear music of the vivid lines. To 
 justify this assertion let me give here, for 
 instance, his frequently quoted 
 
 "CAROLINA. 
 
 "The despot treads thy sacred sands, 
 Thy pines give shelter to his bands, 
 Thy sons stand by with idle hands, 
 Carolina ! 
 
 "He breathes at ease thy airs of balm, 
 He scorns the lances of thy palm ; 
 Oh ! who shall break thy craven calm, 
 Carolina ! 
 
90 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 "Thy ancient fame is growing dim, 
 A spot is on thy garment s rim ; 
 Give to the winds thy battle hymn, 
 Carolina ! 
 
 "Call on thy children of the hill, 
 Wake swamp and river, coast and rill, 
 Rouse all thy strength and all thy skill, 
 Carolina ! 
 
 "Cite wealth and science, trade and art, 
 Touch with thy fire the cautious mart, 
 And pour thee through the people s heart, 
 Carolina ! 
 
 "Till even the coward spurns his fears, 
 And all thy fields, and fens, and meres, 
 Shall bristle like thy palm, with spears, 
 Carolina ! 
 
 "Hold up the glories of thy dead ; 
 Say how thy elder children bled, 
 And point to Eutaw s battle-bed, 
 Carolina ! 
 
 "Tell how the patriot s soul was tried, 
 And what his dauntless breast defied ; 
 How Rutledge ruled, and Laurens died, 
 Carolina ! 
 
 "Cry ! till thy summons, heard at last, 
 Shall fall, like Marion s bugle-blast, 
 Re-echoed from the haunted past, 
 Carolina ! 
 
 "I hear a murmur, as of waves 
 That grope their way through sunless caves, 
 Like bodies struggling in their graves, 
 Carolina ! 
 
 "And now it deepens ; slow and grand 
 It swells, as, rolling to the land, 
 An ocean broke upon the strand, 
 Carolina ! 
 
Henry Timrod 91 
 
 "Shout ! let it reach the startled Huns ! 
 And roar with all thy festal guns ! 
 It is the answer of thy sons, 
 Carolina ! 
 
 "They will not wait to hear thee call ; 
 From Sachem s head to Sumter s wall 
 Resounds the voice of hut and hall, 
 Carolina ! 
 
 "No ! thou hast not a stain, they say, 
 Or none save what the battle-day 
 Shall wash in seas of blood away, 
 Carolina ! 
 
 "Thy skirts, indeed, the foe may part, 
 Thy robe be pierced with sword and dart, 
 They shall not touch thy noble heart, 
 Carolina ! 
 
 "Ere thou shalt own the tyrant s thrall, 
 Ten times ten thousand men must fall; 
 Thy corpse may harken to his call, 
 Carolina ! 
 
 "When by thy bier, in- mournful throngs, 
 The women chant thy mortal wrongs, 
 Twill be their own funereal songs, 
 Carolina ! 
 
 "From thy dead breast, by ruffians trod, 
 No helpless child shall look to God; 
 All shall be safe beneath the sod, 
 Carolina ! 
 
 "Girt with such wills to do and bear, 
 Assured in right, and mailed in prayer, 
 Thou wilt not bow thee to despair, 
 Carolina ! 
 
 "Throw thy bold banner to the breeze ! 
 Front with thy ranks the threatening seas, 
 Like thine own proud armorial trees, 
 Carolina ! 
 
92 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 "Fling down thy gauntlet to the Huns, 
 And roar the challenge from thy guns ; 
 Then leave the future to thy sons, 
 Carolina !" 
 
 By the way, where shall one find a finer, 
 loftier, more nobly conceived stanza in all poetic 
 literature than the tenth one in "Carolina"? 
 Even the present generation, looking- backward 
 over the long years that have passed looking 
 dispassionately back upon the civil war period 
 even the busy men and women of to-day, 
 must feel a strong thrill of emotion, a quicken 
 ing of the pulse, while reading lines that appear 
 to be surcharged with electrical force; whole 
 stanzas seem to flash lightning and to roar 
 thunder, like a storm in the Tropics. But only 
 those who have personal recollections of these 
 tremendous times can know what a battle-song, 
 such as Timrod s "Carolina," or other impas 
 sioned lyrics of our Southern poets of the war, 
 really meant to the people of the South. To 
 these people there was not one word or line of 
 exaggeration in any of them. Every sentiment, 
 every phrase and simile was applauded as true. 
 Every word and statement had the force of a 
 fact. Their poets, far more than their orators, 
 voiced their deepest, their highest thoughts, and 
 their influence was the greatest, at home or in 
 the field. Among these poet-voices none sang 
 in bolder, clearer, or more moving strains than 
 Timrod s reverberant voice. 
 
Henry Timrod 93 
 
 Of all the hundreds of poets who have 
 hymned the praise of Spring, which of them has 
 sung more exquisitely the charms of the season 
 than Timrod? It is the spring of the South, 
 and the undertone of sadness in the closing 
 verses adds a divine pathos to the picture : 
 
 "SPRING. 
 
 "Spring, with that nameless pathos in the air, 
 Which dwells with all things fair; 
 Spring, with her golden sun and silver rain, 
 Is with us once again. 
 
 "Out in the lonely woods the jasmine burns 
 Its fragrant lamps, and turns 
 Into a royal court with green festoons 
 The banks of dark lagoons. 
 
 "In the deep heart of every forest-tree 
 The blood is all a-glee, 
 
 And there s a look about the leafless bowers 
 As if they dreamed of flowers. 
 
 "Yet still on every side we trace the hand 
 Of winter in the land, 
 Save where the maple reddens on the lawn, 
 Flushed by the season s dawn. 
 
 "Or where, like those strange semblances we find 
 That age to childhood bind, 
 The elm puts on, as if in Nature s scorn, 
 The brown of autumn corn. 
 
 "As yet the turf is dark, although you know 
 That, not a span below, 
 
 A thousand germs are groping through the gloom, 
 And soon will burst their tomb. 
 
 "Already, here and there, on frailest stems 
 Appear some azure gems, 
 Small as might deck, upon a gala-day, 
 The forehead of a Fay. 
 
94 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 "In gardens you may note amid the dearth 
 The crocus breaking earth ; 
 
 And near the snow-drop s tender white and green, 
 The violet in its screen. 
 
 "But many gleams and shadows needs must pass 
 Along the budding grass, 
 
 And weeks go by, before the enamoured South 
 Shall kiss the rose s mouth. 
 
 "Still there s a sense of blossoms yet unborn 
 In the sweet airs of morn ; 
 One almost looks to see the very street 
 Grow purple at his feet. 
 
 "At times a fragrant breeze comes floating by, 
 And brings, you know not why, 
 A feeling as when eager crowds await 
 Before a palace gate 
 
 "Some wondrous pageant ; and you scarce would start 
 If, from a beech s heart, 
 
 A blue-eyed Dryad, stepping forth, should say, 
 Behold me ! I am May ! 
 
 "Ah ! who would couple thoughts of war and crime 
 With such a blessed time? 
 Who in the west-wind s aromatic breath 
 Could hear the call of death? 
 
 "Yet not more surely shall the spring awake 
 The voice of wood and brake, 
 
 Than she shall rouse, for all her tranquil charms, 
 A million men to arms. 
 
 "There shall be deeper hues upon her plains 
 Than all her sunlit rains, 
 And every gladdening influence around, 
 Can summon from its ground. 
 
 "Oh ! standing on this desecrated mould, 
 Methinks that I behold, 
 Lifting her bloody daisies up to God, 
 Spring, kneeling on the sod. 
 
Henry Timrod 95 
 
 "And calling, with the voice of all her rills, 
 Upon the ancient hills 
 
 To fall and crush the tyrants and the slaves 
 Who turn her meads to graves." 
 
 The ode to commemorate the decoration with 
 flowers of the graves of Confederate soldiers in 
 Magnolia cemetery, at Charleston, written in 
 1867, is one of the finest in the language, and 
 worthy to stand beside the famous ode of Col 
 lins : "How sleep the brave, who sink to rest." 
 "A Vision of Poesy" is a poem of considerable 
 length, with some highly imaginative passages. 
 Its metrical art is well sustained, but the stately, 
 rather monotonous movement, its elaborately 
 developed theme, the impression it leaves on the 
 reader s mind of scholastic effort, are qualities 
 that fail to give us that instant sense of inspira 
 tion, of naive grace and freshness, of unpre 
 meditated art, of feeling gushing straight from 
 the heart, the perfection of melody, which we 
 always realize in his delightful lyrics, his short 
 poems and sonnets. Take for instance, the 
 simple, dainty, ethereally lovely lyric entitled 
 "The Lily Confidant." 
 
 In "The Cotton Boll" Timrod has done for 
 the fleecy staple of the South what Lanier did 
 so excellently for "Corn." It is a poem replete 
 with lovely fancies, vibrant with harmony, full 
 of rich color and glow. No poet has ever 
 painted the peculiar charm of a Southern land 
 scape with a more masterful hand : 
 
96 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 "Where sleeps the poet who shall fitly sing 
 The source wherefrom doth spring 
 That mighty commerce which, confined 
 To the mean channel of no selfish mart, 
 Goes out to every shore 
 
 Of this broad earth, and throngs the sea with ships 
 That bear no thunders ; hushes hungry lips 
 In alien lands ; 
 
 Joins with a delicate web remotest strands : 
 And gladdening rich and poor, 
 Doth gild Parisian domes, 
 Or feed the cottage-smoke of English homes 
 And only bounds its blessings by mankind !" 
 
 The poet who "fitly" sung this marvel is Tim- 
 rod, and he "sleeps" in Trinity churchyard, 
 Columbia, S. C. 
 
 In his "Katie" we have Timrod before us 
 in his happiest mood, as the lover, and the in 
 terpreter of love, and as the enthusiastic painter 
 of Nature, in her serenest and most attractive 
 aspects. The poem is idyllic. The portrait of 
 the fair English girl, environed by the beauty 
 of an English landscape in spring-time, is a gem 
 of poetic art. The Wordsworthian spirit is 
 mphatically felt in much that Timrod wrote, 
 specially in his nature-poems the power he 
 ad of transmitting the common into something 
 i rich and rare," and detecting the glory of 
 Beauty in a daisy or a blade of grass. In Tim- 
 rod s soul there was much of Wordsworth s 
 worship of Nature. 
 
 In the delicate art of the sonnet, Timrod s 
 genius manifested itself with a simple elegance, 
 a condensed wealth of spiritual meaning, and 
 
Henry Timrod 97 
 
 a grace of form but rarely excelled in English 
 poetry. His sonnets rank among the best that 
 America has produced. The acknowledged 
 technical difficulties of this form of poetry add 
 to the value of the success he achieved in this 
 field, not to mention the intrinsic merit, the 
 force and beauty of the poetry itself. It is hard 
 to make a choice among so much excellence. At 
 random I select the following 
 
 SONNETS. 
 
 T. . T __ 
 
 "Are these wild thoughts, thus fettered in my rhymes, 
 Indeed the product of my heart and brain? 
 How strange that on my ear the rhythmic strain 
 Falls like faint memories of far off times ! 
 When did I feel the sorrow, act the part, 
 Which I have striven to shadow forth in song? 
 In what dead century swept that mingled throng 
 Of mighty pains and pleasures through my heart? 
 Not in the yesterday of that still life, 
 Which I have passed so free and far from strife 
 But somewhere in this weary world, I know, 
 In some strange land, beneath some Orient clime 
 I saw or shared a martyrdom sublime, 
 And felt a deeper grief than any later woe. 
 
 II 
 
 "Some truths there be are better left unsaid ; 
 Much is there that we may not speak unblamed. 
 On words, as wings, how many joys have fled! 
 The jealous fairies love not to be named. 
 There is an old-world tale of one whose bed 
 A genius graced, to all, save him, unknown ; 
 One day the secret passed his lips, and sped 
 As secrets speed thenceforth he slept alone. 
 
98 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 Too much, oh ! far too much is told in books ; 
 Too broad a daylight wraps us all and each. 
 Ah ! it is well that, deeper than our looks 
 Some secrets lie beyond conjecture s reach. 
 Ah ! it is well that in the soul are nooks 
 That will not open to the keys of speech. 
 
 in 
 
 "I scarcely grieve, O Nature ! at the lot 
 That pent my life within a city s bounds, 
 And shut me from thy sweetest sights and sounds. 
 Perhaps I had not learned, if some lone cot 
 Had nursed a dreamy childhood, what the mart 
 Taught me amid its turmoil ; so my youth 
 Had missed full many a stern but wholesome truth. 
 Here, too, Q Nature ! in this haunt of Art, 
 Thy power is on me, and I own thy thrall. 
 There is no unimpressive spot on earth ! 
 The beauty of the stars is over all, 
 And Day and Darkness visit every hearth. 
 Clouds do not scorn us : yonder factory s smoke 
 Looked like a golden mist when morning broke." 
 
 When Timrod s body had been buried in an 
 unmarked grave he was soon forgotten by the 
 public. Of course his memory, and the appre 
 ciation of his genius, remained dear and sacred 
 to his family, his most intimate friends, and to 
 the few choice spirits who, in a land of darkness, 
 desolation and graves, still stood as faithful 
 disciples of Truth and Beauty, and who strove 
 to restore, or rebuild, the broken altars, and 
 recall the divinities which had presided over 
 them until the storm of war drove them into 
 temporary exile. 
 
 The years following the close of the war 
 were years of social, political, and commercial 
 
Henry Timrod 99 
 
 travail, tumult, and conflict for the South. 
 Her people were intent upon self-preservation. 
 But little attention could be given to the inter 
 ests or the claims of the spiritual and the 
 esthetic. The voices of our poets sounded like 
 the voice of one crying in a wilderness. Small 
 heed was paid to the voices of the living singers, 
 still less to the voices of the dead. Men were 
 absorbed, body and soul, in the re-establishment 
 of their homes, in labors to restore broken for 
 tunes; in raising crops, in buying and selling; 
 in starting again the wheels of long-interrupted 
 progress ; in resurrecting from the ashes of the 
 past whatever might be worthy of preservation, 
 or what could be used, along with fresh 
 material, for the creation of a new and more 
 glorious empire of the future. Hence this 
 period was preeminently materialistic, mer 
 cenary, selfish, devoid of the desire for the fruits 
 of the spiritual and the ornaments of the ideal. 
 The times were coldly practical, prosaic, and 
 men looked with disfavor upon almost every 
 thing that seemed calculated to interfere with 
 the prevailing fashion of Mammon worship 
 the cult of the almighty "Dollar." 
 
 There was, therefore, small room in the 
 minds of our people for the appreciation of 
 poetry, and little regard for poets, living or 
 dead. The singing of our living minstrels fell 
 on inattentive ears, and the memory of the dead 
 was allowed to fade into oblivion. The dead, 
 
100 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 however, for the time being, had the best of 
 the situation ; they were exempt from "the slings 
 and arrows of outrageous fortune" ; but to the 
 living this period of apathy and neglect meant 
 bitter disappointments, and occasionally actual 
 starvation, and untimely death. We need only 
 to point to the painful life-stories of Timrod 
 and Lanier. 
 
 Under such circumstances, resulting from a 
 long and destructive civil war, the presence of 
 lamentable indifference to the interests of litera 
 ture, and of the arts generally, can be readily 
 accounted for. That all artists, and the repre 
 sentatives of literature, were but poorly appre 
 ciated and rarely rewarded, followed as an 
 : fcevitable sequence. But that during recent 
 years a very gratifying change for the better 
 has come over the spirit of the Southern people, 
 is a self-evident fact. Among all classes there 
 has been a general revival in the interests of 
 education, a fruitful longing for the quickening 
 influences of higher culture. Love for the true 
 and the beautiful, just appreciation of the Fine 
 Arts, admiration and pecuniary reward for 
 artist and author, are tangible proofs of the 
 spiritual reincarnation of our people. 
 
 This manifestation of intellectual advance 
 ment, of the readjustment of mental and moral 
 standards on the highest levels of human aspi 
 rations and achievement, keeps pace with the 
 marvelous progress in the material world, and 
 
Henry Timrod 101 
 
 the outlook for the future is radiant with hope 
 and promise. The point I have attempted to 
 make clear in the foregoing remarks is well 
 illustrated in Timrod s case. 
 
 In 1898, Dr. F. Muench of Charleston, in a 
 magazine article, said : 
 
 "For twenty-five long years after his death 
 Timrod s name was hardly ever mentioned, 
 and rare very rare are the instances of men 
 whose memory, buried under oblivion for so 
 long a time, is suddenly and lastingly revived 
 and redeemed in the rueful and ardent recogni 
 tion of his people; and it is furthermore evident 
 that such rare cases bear in themselves a con 
 vincing proof of the man s intrinsic worth to 
 humanity. Do we, then, really stand here 
 before such a wonder of resurrection from the 
 grave, before a miracle of rehabilitation of a 
 deserving man s claim to the undying gratitude 
 of posterity? 
 
 "We do ! Not only that daily more and more 
 lecturers and professors choose his life and his 
 life s work as themes for their dissertations 
 not only that there has lately arisen an ever 
 growing demand for his work, whereof not one 
 copy is to be found anywhere and at any price 
 (and yet he sold it for a loaf of bread!) not 
 only that more and more books on Southern 
 literature bring extracts of his work not only 
 that America s ablest critic and most prominent 
 literary authority, Richard Henry Stoddard, 
 
102 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 calls him the greatest poet the South has yet 
 produced even now he is concurrently and 
 universally recognized as Henry Timrod, the 
 sweet Singer of the South." 
 
 In the light and in the appreciative spirit of 
 the New Day, let us forget the gloom and the 
 apathy of the past. 
 
 In October, 1898, a number of friends of 
 Henry Timrod, and admirers of his genius, 
 determined to publish a new and complete 
 edition of his poems, and to erect a befitting 
 public memorial in his honor. When the diffi 
 culties in the way of this object had been suc 
 cessfully overcome, these public-spirited gentle 
 men organized under the name of "The Timrod 
 Memorial Association" of South Carolina. A 
 well known Boston publishing house was 
 engaged to print the book, and it was issued 
 May i, 1899. The introduction is an earnest 
 and sympathetic tribute to the poet, and gives 
 an interesting account of his life. The book 
 met with instant success, not only due to its 
 intrinsic merits, but also to the excellent busi 
 ness management of the gentlemen who super 
 vised its publication and sale, and who, in the 
 gratification of this success, felt themselves 
 richly rewarded for their unselfish labors. In 
 a short time the memorial edition of four thou 
 sand copies was sold, and the proceeds were 
 applied as proposed. 
 
 In the fall of 1900 Mr. Edward V. Valentine 
 of Richmond, Virginia, the distinguished 
 
Henry Timrod 103 
 
 sculptor, was commissioned to make a bronze 
 bust of Timrod, to be mounted upon a pedestal 
 of Carolina granite. On May i, 1901, the 
 monument, chaste in design, and with its speak 
 ing likeness of the poet, was unveiled at Charles 
 ton with impressive ceremonies, and before a 
 large concourse of people. The monument 
 stands in Washington Square, in a locality of 
 historic interest. Eloquent addresses by promi 
 nent speakers were delivered; civic societies, 
 public schools, and colleges were represented, 
 and the ladies of Charleston contributed a 
 wealth of flowers for this festal occasion. A 
 chaste and graceful poem, written for the occa 
 sion by Henry Austin of New York, was read 
 by the author, and so an event, gratifying 
 lovers of literature everywhere, and in every 
 particular most honorable to all concerned, 
 passed into history. Mr. Hamilton W. Mabie 
 noted the occasion in an editorial article in the 
 Outlook of May II, 1901, in which he paid 
 Timrod, and the poetry of the South, a very 
 graceful tribute. Alluding to Timrod, Hayne, 
 and Lanier, he said that they were not only men 
 of stainless life ; there was a touch of the heroic 
 in each of them, and that they belonged as much 
 to the North as to the South. "Timrod, 
 especially," he said, "appeals to the Northern 
 reader by reason of his freedom of imagination, 
 his power of surrender to emotion, and the 
 chivalric note of his spirit." 
 
104 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 A pleasant incident, also, in connection with 
 the work of the Memorial Association, is the 
 fact that the graves of Timrod, of his child 
 Willie, his mother and sister, in the cemetery 
 at Columbia, have been permanently marked, 
 and made as attractive as possible. 
 
 The poetical works of Henry Timrod reveal 
 to the thoughtful reader the soul of a singer 
 upon whom has been bestowed, in rich measure, 
 the heavenly afflatus; one whom the grace of 
 God had made a poet; one who had a divine 
 message to deliver to the world ; one in whom 
 the true and good and beautiful found fit 
 expression in wise and philosophic thoughts, in 
 noble and perfect form. 
 
 As an interpreter of Nature he sang as her 
 intimate friend and lover. He laid his ear to 
 her lips, and she revealed to him her most 
 sacred secrets, teaching him, as her poet, the 
 language through which he might tell them to 
 the world. As a narrator in verse of the joys 
 and sorrows, the hopes and fears of human life 
 the ever-changing vicissitudes that accom 
 pany life s journey from the cradle to the grave 
 he impresses us with his loyalty to truth, to 
 faith, to reverence for whatsoever ennobles our 
 nature, and fits the soul for its heritage of 
 immortality. 
 
 As a singer of songs, pure and simple, he is 
 unsurpassed for the purity and simplicity of his 
 artistic methods, the clearness and sonorousness 
 
Henry Timrod 105 
 
 of his verse, the haunting lyric lilt and liquid- 
 ness of his melody. Take him all in all, his 
 place in the front rank of American and English 
 minor poets can never be successfully chal 
 lenged. His life and work is best epitomized in 
 the words inscribed upon one of the bronze 
 panels of his monument : 
 
 "Through clouds and through sunshine, in peace and 
 in war, amid the stress of poverty and the storms of civil 
 strife, his soul never faltered and his purpose never 
 failed. To his poetic mission he was faithful to the end. 
 In life and in death he was not disobedient unto the 
 Heavenly vision." 
 
ABRAM JOSEPH RYAN 
 
 Reverend Abram Joseph Ryan, familiarly 
 known as "Father Ryan, the poet-priest," 
 according to some of his biographers, was born 
 in Virginia, in 1840. This is the statement of 
 Davidson, in his "Living Writers of the South" 
 (New York, 1869). But concerning the date 
 of his birth, and his place of nativity, no posi 
 tive information seems to be at hand. His latest 
 and most accurate biographer, John Moran, in 
 the memoir he wrote for the Household edition 
 of the poet s works, says that Hagerstown, 
 Maryland, Norfolk, Virginia, and Limerick, 
 Ireland, are claimed to be his birth-place, and 
 that the date of his birth is variously stated to 
 be 1834, 1836, and 1840. Moran s memoir is 
 the latest biography we have of Father Ryan, 
 and is probably the surest relative to the facts 
 of the poet s life. We gather from this that, 
 when Ryan was eight years old, his parents 
 resided in St. Louis. In that city he received 
 his early training, under the supervision of the 
 Brothers of the Christian Schools. He was a 
 bright and ambitious pupil, and soon gave 
 proof of a highly gifted mind. Modesty, 
 
FACING PAQI 106 
 
Abram Joseph Ryan 107 
 
 amiability, and a deep devotional spirit were 
 conspicuous elements of his character. This 
 religious tendency in his nature influenced his 
 teachers to direct his studies with the view of 
 fitting him, eventually, for the priesthood, a 
 view fully in accord with the desire and incli 
 nation of the future priest and poet. 
 
 Later on he entered the Ecclesiastical Semi 
 nary at Niagara, New York. In this institution 
 he continued his studies with great ardor and 
 success, in due time graduating with honors. 
 He was then ordained as a priest, and entered 
 upon the active duties of a missionary. 
 
 When the war between the States began he 
 entered the Confederate army as a chaplain, 
 serving the Southern cause faithfully in that 
 capacity, until the war closed at fateful Appo- 
 mattox. 
 
 After the war he was pastor of the Roman 
 Catholic church in Nashville, Tennessee ; also at 
 Clarksville and Knoxville, in the same State. 
 
 Removing to Augusta, Georgia, he estab 
 lished a paper in that city called The Banner 
 of the South. This journal he conducted and 
 edited for five years with conspicuous ability. 
 The paper did not prove a financial success, and 
 suspended. During this period he was an occa 
 sional contributor to various magazines and 
 literary journals, in prose and verse; also devot 
 ing much time and labor to lectures for the 
 benefit of the orphans and the crippled soldiers 
 of the South. 
 
108 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 Removing to Mobile, Alabama, he served as 
 pastor of St. Mary s Church in that city, from 
 1870 to 1883. In the latter year he was given 
 permission to travel through the country on 
 a lecture tour, in behalf of a very worthy chari 
 table institution. While thus engaged his 
 health failed and he was compelled to abstain 
 from all active work. While living in retire 
 ment at the Franciscan monastery, in Louis 
 ville, Kentucky, the end came, and he died on 
 the twenty-third day of April, 1886. A "Life 
 of Christ," upon which he had been at work for 
 some years, remained unfinished. 
 
 I had the privilege of meeting him in Atlanta 
 and hearing him lecture for the benefit of the 
 institution of charity to which allusion has 
 already been made. Naturally, the many years 
 which have passed since then have somewhat 
 dimmed the picture of the striking personality 
 that stood before us on that occasion, but the 
 outlines are still vividly impressed on my 
 memory. He was of medium height, his 
 shoulders, though somewhat stooping, were 
 broad, and firmly set upon them was a re 
 markably massive head, with a very broad and 
 full forehead. His dark hair, brushed backward 
 negligently, was long and curly, gracefully 
 framing his pale face, a face whose expression 
 was sad and somewhat austere ; but it was full 
 of power, carved, here and there, with lines and 
 furrows which with mute eloquence indicated a 
 
Abram Joseph Ryan 109 
 
 strong, passionate nature, but subdued and held 
 in check by a mighty inward purpose ; the face 
 exhibited the results of great spiritual strug 
 gles, of sorrow and of suffering, the scars of 
 the conflict remaining, but their meaning glori 
 fied and made holy by the serene and abiding 
 light that shines out of a soul that has con 
 quered its peace and resignation through prayer 
 and religious meditations. His voice was clear, 
 his elocution simple, direct, emphatic. But the 
 most expressive feature of that strong, pathetic 
 face was the expression of his eyes ; large, deep- 
 set and dark, shining out from under finely 
 arched eyebrows, they were indeed luminous 
 with the splendor of a pure and richly endowed 
 soul. This is the portrait, as I remember it, 
 of Father Ryan, the poet-priest, a few years 
 before his death. 
 
 Father Ryan s poetic genius was of a high 
 order, and he will always hold a conspicuous 
 place among American poets. Certainly the 
 people of the South honor their poet-priest, 
 and have given him a warm place in their 
 hearts. His popularity is proven by the numer 
 ous editions of his poems and songs which have 
 been published. The fact that he is distinct 
 ively known as the "poet of the Lost Cause" 
 gives him a unique place, separating him from 
 the other American poets of his time. He sang 
 the paeans, he chanted the requiems of that 
 Cause. In defense of their native land, for 
 
110 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 principles they honestly believed to be true, the 
 patriotic people of the South gladly pledged 
 their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred 
 honor, and brave men fought, bled, and died 
 for them on many a bloody battle-field. These 
 brave men and their deeds Father Ryan has 
 immortalized in his poems and songs. The 
 poet placed these songs upon his country s 
 altar, as offerings of patriotism. For this 
 reason his memory is precious to his people, and 
 they have crowned him with a laurel-wreath 
 as beautiful as those that adorn the brows of 
 the German Koerner and the Greek Tyrtseus, 
 or that of any one of the fiery-souled bards 
 whose lyrics, bewailing the defeat of a people s 
 hopes, or celebrating its victories, have become 
 a glorious heritage of the human race. 
 
 This fervid martial vein is fully displayed in 
 his "Sentinel Songfs," one of which closes with 
 this lofty sentiment : 
 
 "When marble wears away, 
 
 And monuments are dust, 
 The Songs that guard our soldiers clay 
 Will still fulfil their trust!" 
 
 Another very popular poem of his is the 
 clear-ringing, brilliant lyric called 
 
 "THE SWORD OF ROBERT LEE. 
 
 "Forth from its scabbard, pure and bright, 
 
 Flashed the sword of Lee ! 
 Far in the front of the deadly fight, 
 High o er the brave in the cause of Right, 
 Its stainless sheen, like a beacon light, 
 Led us to victory ! 
 
Abram Joseph Ryan ill 
 
 "Out of its scabbard, where, full long, 
 
 It slumbered peacefully, 
 Roused from its rest by the battle s song, 
 Shielding the feeble, smiting the strong, 
 Guarding the right, avenging the wrong, 
 
 Gleamed the sword of Lee. 
 
 "Forth from its scabbard, high in air 
 
 Beneath Virginia s sky; 
 And they who saw it gleaming there, 
 And knew who bore it, knelt to swear 
 That where that sword led they would dare 
 
 To follow and to die. 
 
 "Out of its scabbard ! Never hand 
 
 Waved sword from stain as free, 
 Nor purer sword led braver band, 
 Nor braver bled for brighter land, 
 Nor brighter land had cause so grand, 
 Nor cause a chief like Lee ! 
 
 "Forth from its scabbard ! How we prayed 
 
 That sword might victor be ; 
 And when our triumph was delayed, 
 And many a heart grew sore afraid, 
 We still hoped on while gleamed the blade 
 
 Of noble Robert Lee. 
 
 "Forth from its scabbard all in vain 
 
 Bright flashed the sword of Lee ; 
 Tis shrouded now in its sheath again, 
 It sleeps the sleep of our noble slain, 
 Defeated, yet without a stain, 
 Proudly and peacefully." 
 
 The widest known and quoted lyric of all, 
 an indubitable inspiration, composed in the 
 white heat of lyric passion the splendid re 
 quiem song of a defeated people, yet proud 
 spirited and magnificent even in defeat, is 
 Ryan s "The Conquered Banner." When the 
 
112 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 poem was first published it was signed 
 "Moina." In an old scrap-book of mine there 
 is a clipping taken from some Southern paper, 
 containing the poem. In a footnote the editor 
 says: "By special request we republish this 
 fine lyric which, by the way, will be found the 
 last in the collection of Southern Songs, pub 
 lished by Blalock & Co. Who is Moina ? May 
 we not hope to hear again from her pen? 
 (The her is in italics.) Evidently the belief 
 was current then that a woman had written the 
 famous lyric. Father Ryan, directly after the 
 war, wrote a number of his poems under the 
 nom de plume "Moina." 
 
 "THE CONQUERED BANNER. 
 
 "Furl that Banner, for tis weary ; 
 Round its staff tis drooping dreary ; 
 
 Furl it, fold it, it is best ; 
 For there s not a man to wave it, 
 And there s not a sword to save it, 
 And there s not one left to lave it 
 In the blood which heroes gave it ; 
 And its foes now scorn and brave it ; 
 
 Furl it, hide it, let it rest ! 
 
 "Take the Banner down ! tis tattered ; 
 Broken is its staff and shattered ; 
 And the valiant hosts are scattered 
 
 Over whom it floated high. 
 Oh! tis hard for us to fold it; 
 Hard to think there s none to hold it ; 
 Hard that those who once unrolled it 
 
 Now must furl it with a sigh. 
 
Abram Joseph Ryan 113 
 
 "Furl that Banner ! furl it sadly ! 
 Once ten thousand hailed it gladly, 
 And ten thousand wildly, madly, 
 
 Swore it should forever wave ; 
 Swore that foeman s sword should never 
 Hearts like theirs entwined dissever, 
 And that flag should float forever 
 
 O er their freedom or their grave ! 
 
 "Furl it! for the hands that grasped it, 
 And the hearts that fondly clasped it, 
 
 Cold and dead are lying low ; 
 And that Banner it is trailing ! 
 While around it sounds the wailing 
 
 Of its people in their woe. 
 
 "For, though conquered, they adore it ! 
 Love the cold, dead hands that bore it ! 
 Weep for those who fell before it ! 
 Pardon those who trailed and tore it ! 
 But, oh ! wildly they deplore it, 
 Now to furl and fold it so. 
 
 "Furl that Banner ! True, tis gory, 
 Yet tis wreathed around with glory, 
 And twill live in song and story, 
 
 Though its folds are in the dust; 
 For its fame on brightest pages, 
 Penned by poets and by sages, 
 Shall go sounding down the ages, 
 
 Furl its folds though now we must. 
 
 "Furl that Banner, softly, slowly ! 
 Treat it gently it is holy 
 For it droops above the dead. 
 Touch it not unfold it never, 
 Let it droop there, furled forever, 
 For its people s hopes are fled !" 
 
 Patriotism his intense love of the South, 
 .and of the cause her people had defended with 
 such heroic valor, and the sufferings of defeat, 
 
114 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 so patiently and bravely borne, always inflamed 
 this poet s soul, and the strains he then struck 
 from his harp came "as the winds come, when 
 forests are rended; came as the waves come, 
 when navies are stranded." Equally peculiar, 
 in their fervid mood and profound earnestness, 
 are his devotional songs and poems ; his deeply 
 religious and meditative spirit took delight in 
 the contemplation of the ideal, the divine, the 
 eternal. In all of his religious poetry we are 
 met by the warmth of pious zeal and the mys 
 tical glow of spiritual revelation. The words 
 seem to throb with emotion and struggling 
 aspiration. So keen, so subtle are the feelings 
 controlling him during the moods from which 
 these effusions flowed, that it seems as if the 
 poet, finally, can express himself only in lyrical 
 sobs and moanings; he seems to have been 
 thrown into a kind of ecstasy, in which he 
 beholds visions of ineffable spiritual beauty, 
 and seems ready to touch and almost lift the 
 curtain that veils the Holy of Holies, and thus, 
 by a glimpse reveal the very face of God ! It 
 is in these songs and poems, coming from the 
 depths of his soul, that we hear in Father Ryan 
 the clearest and richest poetic voice, in America, 
 of the great Christian Church of which he was 
 the type and representative. 
 
 In his Church Ryan found a wide field for 
 the exercise of the spirituality so characteristic 
 of him. It bore him to the empyrean on the 
 
Abram Joseph Ryan 115 
 
 wings of its majestic anthems and glorious 
 symphonies. It gave him opportunity for re 
 tirement, for self-communion, for meditation 
 on supernal things. It harmonized with the 
 introspection and self-immolating tendencies of 
 his nature. It nourished him with heavenly 
 manna; it enchanted him with the glamour of 
 the mystical, the supernatural; it gave him 
 moral strength, and directed the excursions of 
 his imagination. As a fine example of his de 
 votional muse let me give here his weird, 
 intensively imaginative 
 
 "SONG OF THE MYSTIC. 
 
 "I walk down the Valley of Silence 
 Down the dim, voiceless valley alone ! 
 And I hear not the fall of a footstep 
 Around me, save God s and my own ; 
 And the hush of my heart is as holy 
 As hovers where angels have flown. 
 
 "Long ago I was weary of voices, 
 Whose music my heart could not win; 
 Long ago I was weary of voices, 
 That fretted my soul with their din; 
 Long ago was I weary of places 
 Where I met but the hitman and sin. 
 
 "I walked in the world with the worldly, 
 I craved what the world never gave ; 
 And I said : In the world each Ideal, 
 That shines like a star on life s wave, 
 Is wrecked on the shores of the Real, 
 And sleeps like a dream in a grave. 
 
116 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 "And still did I pine for the Perfect, 
 And still found the False with the True ; 
 I sought mid the Human for Heaven, 
 And caught a mere glimpse of the Blue ; 
 And I wept when the clouds of the Mortal, 
 Veiled even that glimpse from my view. 
 
 "And I toiled on, heart-tired of the Human, 
 And I moaned mid the mazes of men, 
 Till I knelt, long ago, at an altar, 
 And I heard a voice call me. Since then 
 I walked down the Valley of Silence, 
 That lies far beyond mortal ken. 
 
 "Do you ask what I found in the Valley? 
 Tis my trysting place with the Divine ; 
 And I fell at the feet of the Holy, 
 And above me a voice said : Be mine ; 
 And there arose from the depths of my spirit 
 An echo My heart shall be thine. 
 
 "Do you ask how I live in the Valley? 
 I weep, and I dream, and I pray, 
 But my tears are as sweet as the dew-drops 
 That fall on the roses of May ; 
 And my prayer, like a perfume from censers, 
 Ascendeth to God night and day. 
 
 "In the hush of the Valley of Silence, 
 I dream all the songs that I sing; 
 And the music floats down the dim Valley, 
 Till each finds a word for a wing, 
 That to hearts, like the dove of the Deluge, 
 A message of peace they may bring. 
 
 "But far on the deep there are billows, 
 That never shall break on the beach ; 
 And I have heard songs in Silence, 
 That never shall float into speech ; 
 And I have had dreams in the Valley, 
 Too lofty for language to reach ; 
 
Abram Joseph Ryan 117 
 
 "And I have seen Thoughts in the Valley 
 Ah, me ! how my spirit was stirred ! 
 And they wear holy veils on their faces, 
 Their footsteps can scarcely be heard ; 
 They pass through the Valley like virgins, 
 Too pure for the touch of a word ! 
 
 "Do you ask me the place of the Valley, 
 Ye hearts that are harrowed by care? 
 It lieth afar between mountains, 
 And God and His angels are there; 
 And one is the dark mount of Sorrow, 
 And one the bright mountain of Prayer." 
 
 Another beautiful and pathetic song of his 
 has been set to music by Prof. Samuel P. Snow. 
 It is called "When?" The poet, anticipating 
 death, gladly welcomes him as "a heavenly mes 
 senger" bringing peace and rest, and the assur 
 ance that the poet s faith and trust in God will 
 take him where he can "kneel and kiss thy feet 
 in Heaven, oh, my God !" From Father Ryan s 
 miscellaneous verse, even that which was con 
 ceived and written in his lighter and most 
 fugitive mood, it is impossible to select any 
 thing that could be called commonplace or 
 trivial. The charm of pure sentiment, the sure 
 though light touch of the master-hand, the glow 
 and fancy of an original mind, the unmis 
 takable afflatus, present themselves ; "the Ryan 
 mark" is always evident. 
 
 The flowers and the fruits of Ryan s genius 
 grew out of a rich native soil, and though the 
 field he cultivated was not a very wide one, nor 
 his technical skill such as would satisfy all the 
 
118 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 fine demands of modern poetical workmanship, 
 yet the field he did occupy he made peculiarly 
 his own. He was a follower of no established 
 "school" ; he was no imitator of any master. 
 He was content to lay his productions upon the 
 twin altars of Patriotism and Religion, doing 
 this in the spirit of loyalty, self-consecration, 
 and adoration. He cared nothing for the usual 
 prizes that are sought for by ambitious writers 
 fame and gold. The eyes of his spirit were 
 fixed upon a far higher goal, upon a reward 
 grander than any the world could bestow upon 
 him the crown of immortality, that became 
 his when the finger of God had touched him, 
 on that beautiful Spring-day, in a cell of his 
 monastery. Then was realized by him the hope, 
 nay, the assurance, expressed in his pathetic 
 song "When" : 
 
 "I know it will be sweet 
 To leave the haunts of men, 
 And rest beneath the sod, 
 To kneel and kiss Thy feet, 
 In Thy home, oh, my God !" 
 
 Considered as a man, as a priest, and as a 
 poet, Father Ryan exemplified in each the 
 beauty of a noble life, the life of one who de 
 voted himself to the welfare of his fellow-men 
 and to the service of God. 
 
 As a priest he wore unstained the livery of 
 his divine calling. As a poet he wrote out of 
 his own heart and, therefore, wrote himself into 
 
Abram Joseph Ryan 119 
 
 the hearts of others. He never denied his 
 "singing robes/ nor put them on for any un 
 worthy purpose. 
 
 That the poetic works of Father Ryan have 
 secured permanent popularity is attested by the 
 fact that his songs and poems have passed 
 through twelve editions. This popularity rests 
 upon the fact that all lovers of true poetry 
 recognize the genuineness of his work, loving 
 and honoring him because his songs 
 
 "Gushed from his heart, 
 As showers from the clouds of summer, 
 Or tears from the eyelids start." 
 
JAMES BARRON HOPE 
 
 James Barren Hope was born March 23, 
 1829, at the Gosport Navy Yard, near Norfolk, 
 Virginia, at the home of his grandfather, Com 
 modore James Barren, who was the com- 
 mander-in-chief of the Virginia Colonial Navy 
 during the American Revolution. His early 
 years were passed in Hampton, Virginia, and 
 he attended school there. He was graduated 
 from William and Mary College in 1847, and 
 studied law. In 1856 he was elected Common 
 wealth s attorney for Hampton. Even as a boy 
 his literary ability was conspicuous. Later on 
 he attracted the attention of the literary world 
 by the publication, in a Baltimore journal, of 
 a series of poems, which appeared under the 
 nom de plume of "Henry Ellen, Esq." Other 
 poems, published in the Southern Literary 
 Messenger, of Richmond, Virginia, added to 
 the young poet s rising fame. In 1857 he pub 
 lished a volume of poems under the title "Leoni 
 di Monota and Other Poems." This, his first 
 book, contained his brilliant ballad "The Charge 
 of Balaklava." It is a poem full of the fire of 
 battle, celebrating in vigorous stanzas the 
 heroic deeds of Nolan and his "six hundred" 
 
James Barren Hope 121 
 
 troopers, made immortal by Tennyson s splen 
 did poem. In 1857 he was married to Miss 
 Annie Beverly Whiting of Hampton, Virginia. 
 When the war between the States began, he 
 volunteered and served during the war with 
 conspicuous gallantry, and rose to the rank of 
 captain and quartermaster. James Wood 
 Davidson, in his "Living Writers of the South" 
 (1869), tells of how he met the poet, after the 
 surrender of Lee at Appomattox, in the town of 
 Greensboro, North Carolina, and describes 
 the incident, and his personal appearance, as 
 follows : 
 
 "I was standing in front of the Cape Fear 
 Bank, just then the office of the Secretary of 
 the Confederacy, when a gentleman on horse 
 back rode up. He was a spare, slender man, 
 of thin visage; of rather light hair; beard thin 
 and worn in American full-faced style; wear 
 ing spectacles; speaking in a soft, gentleman 
 like tone ; of manner impressive, but refined, and 
 Southern. He appeared a little less than six 
 feet in height, and wore the uniform of a Con 
 federate captain. 
 
 "We exchanged a few words of conversation, 
 frequently interrupted. In a few minutes he 
 passed on ; and in the earthquake of events that 
 rushed and crashed over us that day and the 
 next, I did not again enjoy an opportunity of 
 seeing the poet-captain again." 
 
 Hope s war ballads and poems are worthy 
 to be ranked among the notable poetic effusions 
 
122 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 of that strenuous period of our Southern litera 
 ture. They voiced freely and boldly the spirit 
 of that time, and are excellent specimens of 
 metrical art. One, which takes for its text, 
 "Liberty is always won where there exists the 
 unconquerable will to be free," is called 
 
 "THE OATH OF FREEDOM. 
 
 "Born free, thus we resolve to live, 
 By Heaven, we will be free ! 
 By all the stars which beam on high 
 By the green earth, the mighty sea, 
 By God s unshaken majesty, 
 We will be free or die ! 
 
 "Then let the drums all roll, 
 Let all the trumpets blow ! 
 Mind, heart and soul, 
 We spurn control 
 Attempted by the foe. 
 
 "Born free, thus we resolve to live, 
 
 By Heaven, we will be free ! 
 And vainly now the Northmen try 
 To beat us down in arms we stand, 
 To strike for this our native land ; 
 
 We will be free or die! 
 Then let the drums all roll, etc. 
 
 "Born free, we thus resolve to live, 
 By Heaven, we will be free ! 
 Our wives and children look on high, 
 Pray God to smile upon the Right, 
 And bid us in the deadly fight 
 
 As freemen live or die ! 
 Then let the drums all roll, etc. 
 
 "Born free, thus we resolve to live, 
 
 By Heaven, we will be free ! 
 And ere we cease this battle-cry, 
 
James Barren Hope 123 
 
 Be all our blood, our kindred s, spilt! 
 On bayonet or saber-hilt, 
 
 We will be free or die! 
 Then let the drums all roll, etc. 
 
 "Born free, thus we resolve to live, 
 
 By Heaven, we will be free ! 
 Defiant let the banners fly, 
 Shake out their glories to the air, 
 And kneeling, brothers, let us swear 
 
 We will be free or die ! 
 Then let the drums all roll, etc. 
 
 "Born free, thus we resolve to live, 
 
 By Heaven, we will be free! 
 And to this oath the dead reply 
 Our valiant fathers sacred ghosts, 
 These with us, and the God of hosts, 
 
 We will be free or die ! 
 
 "Then let the drums all roll, 
 Let all the trumpets blow! 
 Mind, heart and soul, 
 We spurn control 
 Attempted by a foe!" 
 
 Another defiant war-cry, intended to stir the 
 hearts of those who still hesitated to take the 
 fateful step of secession and inevitable conflict, 
 is a fine dramatic lyric, entitled 
 
 " LIBERA NOS, O DOMINE! 
 
 "What! ye hold yourselves as freemen? 
 
 Tyrants love just such as ye! 
 Go ! abate your lofty manner ! 
 Write upon the State s old banner : 
 A furore Normanorum, 
 Libera nos, O Domine! 
 
124 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 "Sink before the Federal altar, 
 
 Each one low, on bended knee, 
 Pray, with lips that sob and falter, 
 This prayer from the coward s psalter : 
 A furore Normanorum, 
 Libera nos, O Domine! 
 
 "But ye hold that quick repentance 
 
 In the Northern mind will be; 
 
 This repentance comes no sooner 
 
 Than the robber s did, at Luna! 
 
 A furore Normanorum, 
 
 Libera nos, O Domine ! 
 
 "He repented him: the Bishop 
 Gave him absolution free ; 
 Poured upon him sacred chrysm, 
 In the pomp of his baptism ; 
 A furore Normanorum, 
 Libera nos, O Domine! 
 
 "He repented then he sickened ! 
 
 Was he pining for the sea? 
 In extremis was he shriven, 
 The viaticum was given, 
 
 A furore Normanorum, 
 
 Libera nos, O Domine! 
 
 "Then the old cathedral s choir 
 
 Took the plaintive minor key ; 
 With the Host upraised before him, 
 Down the marble aisles they bore him; 
 A furore Normanorum, 
 Libera nos, O Domine ! 
 
 "While the Bishop and the Abbot- 
 All the monks of high degree 
 Chanting praise to the Madonna, 
 Came to do him Christian honor ! 
 A furore Normanorum, 
 Libera nos, O Domine ! 
 
James Barren Hope 125 
 
 "Now the miserere s cadence 
 
 Takes the voices of the sea, 
 As the music-billows quiver, 
 See the dead freebooter shiver! 
 A furore Normanorum, 
 Libera nos, O Domine! 
 
 "Is it that these intonations 
 
 Thrill him thus from head to knee? 
 
 Lo, his cerements burst asunder, 
 
 Tis a sight of fear and wonder! 
 
 A furore Normanorum, 
 
 Libera nos, O Domine! 
 
 "Fierce he stands before the Bishop, 
 
 Dark as shape of Destiny; 
 Hark! a shriek ascends, appalling 
 Down the prelate goes dead falling ! 
 
 A furore Normanorum, 
 
 Libera nos, O Domine! 
 
 "Hastings lives ! He was but feigning ! 
 
 What ! Repentant ? Never he ! 
 Down he smites the priests and friars, 
 And the city lights with fires ! 
 A furore Normanorum, 
 Libera nos, O Domine! 
 
 "Ah ! the children and the maidens, 
 Tis in vain they strive to flee ! 
 Where the white-haired priests lie bleeding 
 Is no place for woman s pleading. 
 A furore Normanorum, 
 Libera nos, O Domine! 
 
 "Louder swells the frightful tumult 
 
 Pallid Death holds revelry ! 
 Dies the organ s mighty clamor 
 By the Norseman s iron hammer ! 
 
 A furore Normanorum, 
 
 Libera nos, O Domine! 
 
126 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 "So they thought that he d repented ! 
 
 Had they nailed him to the tree, 
 He had not deserved their pity, 
 And they had not lost their city. 
 
 A furore Normanorum, 
 
 Libera nos, O Domine ! 
 
 "For the moral in this story, 
 
 Which is plain as truth can be : 
 If we trust the North s relenting, 
 We shall shriek too late repenting : 
 
 A furore Normanorum, 
 
 Libera nos, O Domine ! " 
 
 When the civil war was over, Captain Hope, 
 with undiminished vigor, began the rebuilding 
 of his broken fortune, devoting his splendid 
 abilities also very successfully to promoting the 
 material and intellectual interests of his native 
 State. He became superintendent of the public 
 schools of Norfolk, the arduous duties of which 
 position he performed with great credit to 
 himself and benefit to the community. He also 
 became editor of the Landmark, the leading 
 daily paper of Norfolk, which under his edi 
 torial control became one of the most influential 
 journals in the South. He continued to edit 
 the Landmark to within a few months of his 
 death, which occurred September 15, 1887. 
 
 He was a versatile as well as a brilliant and 
 thoughtful writer. From his prolific pen came 
 numerous essays, addresses for historic and 
 literary occasions, also a novel called "Made- 
 Ion," and many fine miscellaneous poems. 
 
James Barren Hope 127 
 
 He was frequently selected to be the poet for 
 public anniversaries, which his muse adorned 
 with graceful wreaths of song. Among the 
 most notable of these occasions was the two 
 hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the settle 
 ment of Jamestown, Virginia, by the English ; 
 the unveiling of the statue of Washington at 
 Richmond; and the Congress of the United 
 States selected him as the national poet for the 
 celebration of the Yorktown Centennial, in 
 1 88 1. His ode for this memorable event was 
 called "Arms and the Man," and was a masterly 
 production. 
 
 Another beautiful commemorative poem was 
 the one he wrote for the corner-stone laying 
 of the Lee monument at Richmond, Virginia, 
 in October, 1887. He finished this poem a few 
 days before his death, September I5th, and the 
 poem was read on the appointed day by his 
 friend, Capt. W. C. McCabe. The Lee Memo 
 rial Ode is worthy to rank among the best of 
 our American patriotic poems. 
 
 The Yorktown Centennial Ode has many 
 noble passages. The theme and the occasion 
 were of a character to inspire heart and mind 
 with the lessons of a grand history, and the 
 muse of any true poet with splendid imagina 
 tion. To such an invitation the genius of Hope 
 responded readily and worthily. His portrait 
 of Washington is painted with idealistic 
 strength and classic art : 
 
128 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 "Achilles came from Homer s Jove-like brain 
 
 Pavilioned mid his ships where Thetis trod ; 
 But he whose image dominates this plain 
 Came from the hand of God ! 
 
 "Yet, of his life, which shall all time adorn 
 
 I dare not sing; to try the theme would be 
 To drink as twere that Scandinavian horn 
 Whose tip was in the sea. 
 
 "I bow my head and go upon my ways, 
 
 Who tells that story can but gild the gold ; 
 Could I pile Alps on Apenines of praise 
 The tale would not be told. 
 
 "Not his the blade which lyric fables say 
 
 Cleft Pyrenees from ridge to nether bed, 
 But his the sword which cleared the Sacred Way 
 For Freedom s feet to tread. 
 
 "Not Caesar s genius nor Napoleon s skill 
 
 Gave him proud mastery o er the trembling earth ; 
 But great in honesty and sense, and will 
 He was the man of worth. 
 
 "He knew not North, nor South, nor West, nor East 
 
 Childless himself, Father of States he stood, 
 Strong and sagacious as a knight turned priest, 
 And vowed to deeds of good. 
 
 "Compared with all earth s heroes I may say 
 
 He was, with even half his virtues hid, 
 Greater in what his hand refrained than they 
 Were great in what they did. 
 
 "And thus his image dominates all time, 
 
 Uplifted like the everlasting dome 
 Which rises in a miracle sublime 
 Above eternal Rome. 
 
 "On Rome s once blooming plain where er we stray 
 
 That dome majestic rises on the view, 
 Its cross aglow with every wandering ray 
 That shines along the blue ; 
 
James Barren Hope 129 
 
 "So his vast image shadows all the lands, 
 
 So holds forever man s adoring eye, 
 And o er the Union which he left, it stands 
 Our cross against the sky." 
 
 It was a happy thought of the poet to con 
 centrate special attention upon each part of the 
 historic panorama of the century, by arranging 
 the Colonies in natural groups the New Eng 
 land group, the Middle group, the Southern 
 group. The group of Southern Colonies he 
 adorns with a poetic wreath as follows : 
 
 "Then sweeping down below Virginia s capes, 
 
 From Chesapeake to where Savannah flows, 
 We find the settlers laughing mid their grapes 
 And ignorant of snows. 
 
 "The fragrant uppowock, and golden corn 
 Spread far a-field by river and lagoon, 
 And all the months poured out from Plenty s Horn 
 Were opulent as June. 
 
 "Yet, they had tragedies all dark and fell ! 
 Lone Roanoke Island rises on the view, 
 And this Peninsula its tale could tell 
 Of Opecancanough ! 
 
 "But, when the ocean thunders on the shore 
 
 Its waves, though broken, overflow the beach, 
 So here our Fathers on and onward bore 
 With English laws and speech. 
 
 "Kind skies above them, under foot rich soils ; 
 
 Silence and Savage at their presence fled ; 
 This Giant s causeway, sacred through their toils, 
 Resounded at their tread. 
 
 "With ardent hearts, and ever-open hands, 
 
 Candid and honest, brave and proud they grew, 
 Their lives and habits colored by fair hands 
 As skies give waters hue. 
 
130 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 "The race in semi-Feudal States appears 
 
 Their knightly figures glow in tender mist, 
 With ghostly pennons flung from ghostly spears 
 And ghostly hawks on wrist. 
 
 "By enterprise and high adventures stirred, 
 
 From rude lunette and sentry-guarded croft 
 They hawked at Empire, and, as on they spurred, 
 Fate s falcon soared aloft! 
 
 "Fate s falcon soared aloft full strong and free, 
 
 With blood on talons, plumage, beak, and breast ! 
 Her shadow like a storm-shade on the sea 
 Far-sailing down the West! 
 
 "Swift hoofs clang out behind that falcon s flights 
 
 Hoofs shod with golden horseshoes catch the eye! 
 And as they ring, we see the Forest-Knights 
 The Cavaliers ride by!" 
 
 In Three Summer Studies" we see our 
 poet s muse at its best in the vivid description 
 of natural scenery; in the sights and sounds 
 and curious medley of farm life; of the radiant, 
 redolent summer atmosphere; of the mingling 
 hues of forest, and field, and garden, and 
 orchard, of glowing sky and dark lagoon; of 
 wandering cloud-shadows, of storm and calm 
 the richly colored picture of a Southern sum 
 mer, painted by an artist "to the manner born." 
 The lines are smooth and flowing, and the entire 
 conception is worked out with admirable art. 
 They are "Studies" worthy of being studied. 
 
 i 
 
 The cock hath crowed. I hear the doors unbarr d ; 
 
 Down to the moss-grown porch my way I take, 
 And hear, beside the well within the yard 
 Full many an ancient, quacking, splashing drake, 
 
James Barren Hope 131 
 
 And gobbling goose, and noisy brood-hen all 
 Responding to yon strutting gobbler s call. 
 
 "The dew is thick upon the velvet grass 
 
 The porch-rails hold it in translucent drops, 
 And as the cattle from the enclosure pass, 
 
 Each one, alternate, slowly halts and crops 
 The tall, green spears, with all their dewy load 
 Which grows beside the well-known pasture-road. 
 
 "A lustrous polish is on all the leaves 
 
 The birds flit in and out with varied notes 
 The noisy swallows twitter neath the eaves 
 
 A partridge-whistle through the garden floats, 
 While yonder gaudy peacock harshly cries, 
 As red and gold flush all the eastern skies. 
 
 "Up comes the sun ; thro the dense leaves a spot 
 
 Of splendid light drinks up the dew ; the breeze 
 Which late made leafy music dies ; the day grows hot, 
 And slumbrous sounds come from marauding bees ; 
 The burnished river like a sword-blade shines, 
 Save where tis shadowed by the solemn pines. 
 
 II 
 
 "Over the farm is brooding silence now 
 
 No reaper s song no raven s clangor harsh- 
 No bleat of sheep no distant low of cow 
 
 No croak of frogs within the spreading marsh 
 No bragging cock from littered farm-yard crows, 
 The scene is steeped in silence and repose. 
 
 "A trembling haze hangs over all the fields 
 
 The panting cattle in the river stand 
 Seeking the coolness which its wave scarce yields. 
 
 It seems a Sabbath through the drowsy land : 
 So hushed is all beneath the Summer s spell, 
 I pause and listen for some faint church-bell. 
 
 "The leaves are motionless the song-birds mute 
 
 The very air seems somnolent and sick: 
 The spreading branches with o er-ripened fruit 
 Show in the sunshine all their clusters thick, 
 
132 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 While now and then a mellow apple falls 
 With a dull sound within the orchard walls. 
 
 "The sky has but one solitary cloud, 
 
 Like a dark island, in a sea of light ; 
 The parching furrows twixt the corn-rows plough d 
 
 Seem fairly dancing in my dazzled sight, 
 While over yonder road a dusty haze 
 Grows reddish purple in the sultry blaze. 
 
 in 
 
 "That solitary cloud grows dark and wide, 
 
 While distant thunder rumbles in the air, 
 A fitful ripple breaks the river s tide 
 The lazy cattle are no longer there, 
 But homeward come in long procession slow, 
 With many a bleat and many a plaintive low. 
 
 "Darker and wider-spreading o er the west 
 
 Advancing clouds, each in fantastic form, 
 And mirrored turrets on the river s breast 
 
 Tell in advance the coming of the storm- 
 Closer and brighter glares the lightning s flash, 
 And louder, nearer, sounds the thunder s crash. 
 
 "The air of evening is intensely hot, 
 
 The breeze feels heated as it fans my brows, 
 Now sullen rain-drops patter down like shot 
 Strike in the grass, or rattle mid the boughs- 
 A sultry lull : and then a gust again, 
 And now I see the thick-advancing rain. 
 
 "It fairly hisses as it comes along, 
 
 And where it strikes bounds up again in spray, 
 As if twere dancing to the fitful song 
 
 Made by the trees, which twist themselves and sway 
 In contest with the wind which rises fast, 
 Until the breeze becomes a furious blast ; 
 
 "And now the sudden, fitful storm has fled, 
 The clouds lie piled up in the splendid west, 
 
 In massive shadow tipped with purplish red, 
 Crimson or gold. The scene is one of rest ; 
 
 And on the bosom of yon still lagoon, 
 
 I see the crescent of the pallid moon." 
 
James Barren Hope 133 
 
 Hope s impulses were all kindly and his out 
 look upon the world was altruistic. He was 
 conservative in his views of life and in his 
 estimate of men s motives in public or private 
 matters. His patriotism was not bounded by 
 narrow sectional lines, but ardently embraced 
 our whole country, and his hopes for the future 
 peace, prosperity, and union of the Republic 
 were always optimistic. This spirit is well 
 expressed in the concluding stanzas of his 
 Portsmouth Ode, where he pictures the ideal 
 historian yet to be born of the American 
 Republic. I quote the lines as follows : 
 
 "In the future some historian shall come forth both 
 
 strong and wise, 
 With a love of the Republic, and the truth before his 
 
 eyes! 
 He will show the subtle causes of the war between the 
 
 States, 
 He will go back in his studies far beyond our modern 
 
 dates ; 
 He will trace out hostile ideas, as the miner does the 
 
 lodes; 
 He will show the different habits, born of different 
 
 social codes. 
 He will show the Union riven, and the picture will 
 
 deplore ; 
 He will show it reunited and made stronger than 
 
 before ; 
 Slow and patient, fair and truthful, must the coming 
 
 teacher be, 
 To show how the knife was sharpened, that was ground 
 
 to prune the tree. 
 He will hold the scales of Justice, he will measure 
 
 praise and blame, 
 And the South will stand the verdict, and will stand it 
 
 without shame." 
 
134 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 The strength and beauty of Hope s poetry is 
 best exhibited in his odes; he rises to the 
 nobility of his themes, intertwines beautiful 
 flowers of poesy with the sterner material of 
 historical facts, and impresses a permanent 
 image of the times, the man, and the occasion 
 upon the mind of the reader. Many of his mis 
 cellaneous poems are also virile, felicitous, and 
 quickened with the genuine spirit of the muse. 
 As father, husband, friend, in domestic and 
 public life, he was loved and admired, and his 
 name and memory have been honored by his 
 countrymen, as such a noble man deserves to 
 be honored. 
 
 His daughter, Mrs. Janey Hope Marr, some 
 years ago collected and edited her father s 
 poems, and the volume was published in Rich 
 mond under the appropriate title "A Wreath of 
 Virginia Bay Leaves." The portrait of the 
 poet and other illustrations enhance the value of 
 this volume. The introduction is in excellent 
 taste, and gives interesting references relative 
 to the most notable of the poems. The monu 
 ment to the poet in Elmwood cemetery, at 
 Norfolk, erected by the citizens of that city, 
 bears the following befitting inscription : 
 
 "The tribute of his friends, offered to the memory of 
 the Poet, Patriot, Scholar, and Journalist, and the 
 Knightly Virginia Gentleman." 
 
 In E. C. Stedman s elaborate volume "An 
 American Anthology/ a review of the poets 
 
James Barren Hope 135 
 
 and poetry of America for the past one hundred 
 years, strange to say, the name of James Barron 
 Hope is not mentioned, nor is a line, even, of 
 his famous "Yorktown Centennial Ode" 
 quoted. In view of the fact that names of far 
 less note, and some quite mediocre verses, are 
 given conspicuous place, this omission is 
 scarcely excusable. 
 
FRANCIS ORRERY TICKNOR 
 
 It would seem that the vocation of a "country 
 doctor/ with its hard work day and night, its 
 monotonous round of constant and exhaustive 
 duties, making heavy drafts upon all the mental 
 and physical resources, besides the lack of the 
 stimulating social and intellectual influences 
 which characterize metropolitan life it would 
 seem that such an environment would offer 
 slight inducements and few opportunities to 
 any one so situated, to cultivate esthetics, in 
 dulge in dreams of the imagination, and time 
 for wooing the Muse of Poetry. But genius 
 is an insistent, an irresistible power; it pene 
 trates every barrier, overcomes every obstacle, 
 making them, indeed, stepping-stones to suc 
 cess, and finds congenial nourishment for its 
 sustenance, and the enjoyment of the divinest 
 delights of life, in circumstances and environ 
 ments which, to ungifted natures, would be as 
 dry and barren as sands of the desert. A 
 "country doctor" of the finest type of his pro 
 fession, a good and, therefore, a noble man, and 
 a poet of decided genius, was Dr. Francis O. 
 Ticknor of Georgia, to a brief review of whose 
 
Francis Orrery Ticknor 137 
 
 life and poetical work this sketch is devoted. 
 For the facts given I am indebted to the memoir 
 written by Paul H. Hayne, which introduces 
 the volume of Ticknor s collected poems, pub 
 lished in 1879, by J. B. Lippincott & Co., 
 Philadelphia. 
 
 Dr. Ticknor was born in Baldwin County, 
 Georgia, in 1822, and he died near Columbus, 
 Georgia, in 1874. His father, a prominent 
 physician, was a native of New Jersey; his 
 grandparents were natives of Connecticut; his 
 mother was a native of Savannah, Georgia, 
 where Dr. Ticknor s father was married, and 
 resided for some time. While still a young 
 man he died. The widow and three small chil 
 dren then moved to Columbus, Georgia, where 
 her three sons received an excellent education. 
 Frank studied medicine and graduated in that 
 profession from colleges in Philadelphia and 
 New York. He married Miss Rosalie Nelson, 
 daughter of Hon. T. M. Nelson, a distinguished 
 veteran of the war of 1812, and a member of 
 Congress. 
 
 Shortly after his marriage, Dr. Ticknor 
 settled on a farm near Columbus, Georgia. 
 The scenery around his farm is described as 
 exceedingly beautiful, just such as a deeply 
 poetic nature would take delight in. His home 
 must have been an ideal one, the abode of all 
 the domestic divinities. One of his favorite 
 avocations was the cultivation of fruits and 
 
138 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 flowers. Like Sidney Lanier, he was also a 
 musician, playing exquisitely on the flute, and 
 in many other ways the esthetic and scholarly 
 side of his nature was finely developed and 
 matured. The practical and humanitarian side 
 was equally prominent. His warm heart, his 
 genial, humor-loving* temperament, and his 
 medical skill found an ample field for exercise. 
 He was devoted to his home, and its peaceful, 
 soul-uplifting influences, as in the case of 
 Lanier, contributed largely to his success in his 
 life-work, and gave the serene tone so charac 
 teristic of his verse. He illustrated the truth 
 that "home-loving hearts are happiest." One 
 of his finest domestic poems is called 
 
 "HOME. 
 
 "Forest-girded, cedar-scented, 
 Veiled like Vesper, sweet and dim ; 
 Pure as burned the Temple s glory, 
 Shadowed by the Seraphim ; 
 Islet from contending oceans, 
 Coral-cinctured, crowned with palm, 
 Where the wrestling world s commotions 
 Melt through music into calm; 
 Throats that sing and wings that flutter 
 Softly mid the balm and bloom ; 
 Sweeter sounds than lip can utter 
 Hath my heart for thee 
 My home. 
 
 "Bless that dear old Anglo-Saxon 
 For the sounds he formed so well; 
 Little words, the nectar-waxen 
 Harvest of a honey-cell, 
 Sealing all a summer s sweetness 
 In a single syllable! 
 
Francis Orrery Ticknor 139 
 
 For, of all his quaint word-building, 
 The queen-cell of all the comb, 
 Is that grand old Saxon mouthful, 
 Dear old Saxon heartful 
 Home." 
 
 Unostentatiously he put into daily practice 
 the principles of virtue, mercy and charity, 
 which constitute the foundation-principles of 
 Christianity. 
 
 Paul Hayne pays him a graceful tribute in 
 the memoir : "Far and wide," he says, "he was 
 known and welcomed, especially among 1 the 
 suffering poor. His gleeful smile; his spon 
 taneous criticisms (for his mind actually 
 bubbled over with innocent humor) cheered up 
 many a despondent invalid, and it is possible 
 scared Despair, if not Death himself, away 
 from the bedsides of patients just about to 
 succumb. What wonder, therefore, that when, 
 partly through fatigue, exposure, and the unre 
 mitting discharge of duty, their benefactor was 
 in turn stricken down, to die after a brief, pain 
 ful illness, the community mourned him as only 
 those are mourned who could truly say, like 
 Abou Ben Adhem, in his vision of the Angel 
 and the Book of Gold, write me as one who 
 loved his fellow-men. 
 
 The quaint, gentle, perennial humor of the 
 man, gleams and smiles from his writings, and 
 even his satire is warmed and chastened by it. 
 
140 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 As a good example of his humoristic verse, I 
 select the 
 
 "WHIPPOORWILL. 
 
 "Whip poor Will ! Was there ever heard 
 Such a blood-thirsty, slanderous, scandalous bird! 
 Under the window so slyly to creep, 
 And whistle come whip him while Will s asleep. 
 It s a bird of darkness, and not of day, 
 That whistles a hint that he dare not say. 
 
 "Whip poor Will! Why, what has he done? 
 Has he found your eggs, ma am, and broken one? 
 Has he torn his jacket, or fought at play, 
 Or missed his lessons, or ran away, 
 Or broke a tumbler, or spoke at prayer? 
 
 "No, Willie s a boy that s nice and neat, 
 And Willie s a boy that s bright and sweet; 
 He s quiet at home and he s quick at school, 
 And he never breaks, if he knows, the rule; 
 And I really think it were wonderous silly 
 For nothing at all to whip poor Willie ! 
 
 "But, whip poor Will, if you ve really seen 
 Another Willie that s bad and mean, 
 And you think you ought, and think twill pay 
 To whip poor Willie, why whip away. 
 And so good-by to your birdship till 
 There s more occasion to whip poor Will !" 
 
 In his martial lyrics and poems, Ticknor s 
 genius exhibits itself in its most impressive 
 flights. In the power of passionate feeling, in 
 terse, concentrated diction, clear, ringing music, 
 and idealistic imagery, the poetry evolved by 
 the incidents, the pathos, the glory and the 
 gloom of our civil war, shows but few examples 
 that can be considered superior to the best of 
 Ticknor s contributions to that phase of our 
 American literature. During that terrible 
 
Francis Orrery Ticknor 141 
 
 struggle the poets and song-writers of the 
 North and of the South vied with each other in 
 invoking the Muse. It is but simple justice to 
 say that the work of Southern writers loses 
 nothing in point of merit by comparison with 
 the productions of their competitors of the 
 North. The natural mental, moral, social, and 
 sentimental qualities which differentiate the 
 people of the Northern from the people of the 
 Southern States differences whose origin 
 dates back for centuries and which are due to 
 peculiarities of race, education, and social cus 
 toms, are clearly displayed in the poetry pro 
 duced during the war, and which, to careful 
 students, furnish data for curious and interest 
 ing speculations. 
 
 It is impossible to measure fully the influ 
 ences of the power of song of the plaintive 
 ballad, the lofty and heroic lyric, the rollicking 
 parody, or even the rude, dogeerel camp-fire 
 "catches" in the progress and results of the 
 war. It is certainly true, as far as the South 
 is especially concerned, and as I have said in 
 the introduction to my book, "The War Poets 
 of the South," "the voices of our poets cheered 
 the despondent, nerved the brave to dare and 
 do heroic deeds, comforted the absent, the sick 
 and the dying. They often filled the soul with 
 lofty aspirations, soothing and brightening the 
 loneliness and darkness of the prison, kindling 
 and keeping alive the fires of patriotism, and 
 
142 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 urging on, to glory or the grave, thousands 
 upon thousands of the best, the bravest, truest 
 and noblest spirits that ever went forth to battle 
 for their country and to defend the Cause which 
 they conscientiously believed to be right, and 
 worthy of the sacrifice of life itself." 
 
 In the book referred to I give the names of 
 twenty-three of the most prominent Southern 
 poets of that period, and cite the poems and 
 songs which, in my opinion, represent their best 
 productions. Among these Ticknor s name and 
 poems occupy the conspicuous place they justly 
 merit. Hayne calls Ticknor s "The Virginians 
 of the Valley" a splendid lyric, and James 
 Maurice Thompson says that in its direct, clear, 
 ringing expression, in the strength of its sim 
 plicity, and the naturalness of its art, it reminds 
 him of Beranger. That these opinions of such 
 competent judges are well deserved, will be 
 readily admitted by all who can feel the power, 
 the dominating spell of true lyric poetry. Let 
 us listen to it : 
 
 "THE VIRGINIANS OF THE VALLEY. 
 
 "The knightliest of the knightly race 
 
 That, since the days of old, 
 Have kept the lamp of chivalry 
 
 Alight in hearts of gold ; 
 The kindliest of the kindly band 
 
 That, rarely hating ease, 
 Yet rode with Spotswood round the land, 
 
 And Raleigh round the seas ; 
 
Francis Orrery Ticknor 143 
 
 "Who climbed the blue Virginian hills 
 
 Against embattled foes, 
 And planted there, in valleys fair, 
 
 The lily and the rose; 
 Whose fragrance lives in many lands, 
 
 Whose beauty stars the earth, 
 And lights the hearths of happy homes 
 
 With loveliness and worth. 
 
 "We thought they slept! the sons who kept 
 
 The names of noble sires, 
 And slumbered while the darkness crept 
 
 Around their vigil-fires ; 
 But, aye, the Golden Horseshoe knights 
 
 Their Old Dominion keep, 
 Whose foes have found enchanted ground, 
 
 But not a knight asleep I" 
 
 Another poem of his which commemorates 
 the fate of the Confederate cruiser Alabama, and 
 twines a wreath of laurel about the name of its 
 gallant captain, also fully reaches the high- 
 water mark of Ticknor s lyric gift; its rhyth 
 mic, easy swing, its allusions to the splendor 
 and mystery of the sea, its wealth of fine meta 
 phors, and the spirit of olden romance breath 
 ing from its vivid and throbbing lines, place it 
 in the forefront of ballads of its kind. 
 
 "THE SWORD IN THE SEA. 
 
 "The billows plunge like steeds that bear 
 
 The knights with snow-white crests ; 
 The sea-winds blare like bugles where 
 The Alabama rests. 
 
 "Old glories from their splendor-mists 
 
 Salute with trump and hail, 
 The sword that held the ocean lists 
 Against the world in mail. 
 
144 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 "And down from England s storied hills, 
 
 From lyric slopes of France, 
 The old bright wine of valor fills 
 The chalice of Romance. 
 
 "For here was Glory s tourney-field, 
 
 The tilt-yard of the sea ; 
 The battle-path of kingly wrath, 
 And kinglier courtesy. 
 
 "And down the deeps, in sumless heaps, 
 
 The gold, the gem, the pearl, 
 In one broad blaze of splendor, belt 
 Great England like an earl. 
 
 "And there they rest, the princeliest 
 
 Of earth s regalia gems, 
 The starlight of our Southern Cross, 
 The sword of Raphael Semmes." 
 
 I have read and re-read with unalloyed 
 pleasure the collected poems and songs of Dr. 
 Ticknor, and have wondered at his ability to 
 produce so much verse of excellent quality and 
 fine artistic finish during the necessarily rare 
 intervals of leisure which come to a man 
 engaged in the trying and arduous duties of a 
 country physician with a large practice. The 
 fact proves the genuineness of his poetic endow 
 ment, and the dominating power of it over his 
 heart and soul. As a born poet he was com 
 pelled to sing, the divine vision wooed him and 
 he must needs follow, and though he never 
 reached, nor attempted to reach, the empyrean 
 heights of song, in his lowlier flights his wings 
 were sure and vigorous, and the tender senti- 
 
Francis Orrery Ticknor 145 
 
 ment, the simple, unartificial music of his verse, 
 cannot fail to appeal strongly and lastingly to 
 the hearts of all lovers of true poetry. 
 
 Room remains for me to only say a word or 
 two of Ticknor s rare gem of a poem called 
 "Little Giffen," one of his war-ballads. It is 
 better known, perhaps, than any other of his 
 poems, and well deserves its prominent place in 
 the voluminous collection of our American war 
 poetry. Its terrible pathos; its stern realism, 
 picturing in a few masterly lines the horror, the 
 gloom, and glory of war, the passion of patriot 
 ism, the heroic sense of duty inflaming the soul 
 of even a mere boy of sixteen, and the splendid 
 fervor of the concluding stanza, give to this 
 ballad the distinction it has won in popular 
 esteem. While there were scores of such youth 
 ful heroes on both sides in our civil war, yet 
 the fact that this poem was not the creation of 
 a poet s fancy, but that the incident, as related, 
 actually happened Dr. Ticknor being the 
 "good Samaritan" who took the poor battle- 
 battered stripling-hero to his house and nursed 
 him adds unique interest to the story : 
 
 "LITTLE GIFFEN. 
 
 "Out of the focal and foremost fire, 
 Out of the hospital walls as dire; 
 Smitten of grape-shot and gangrene, 
 (Eighteenth battle, and he sixteen!) 
 Spectre ! such as you seldom see, 
 Little Giffen, of Tennessee ! 
 
146 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 "Take him and welcome! the surgeon said; 
 Little the doctor can help the dead ! 
 So we took him ; and brought him where 
 The balm was sweet in the summer air ; 
 And we laid him down on a wholesome bed 
 Utter Lazarus, heel to head ! 
 
 "And we watched the war with abated breath, 
 Skeleton Boy against skeleton Death. 
 Months of torture, how many such? 
 Weary weeks of the stick and crutch ; 
 And still a glint of the steel-blue eye 
 Told of a spirit that wouldn t die, 
 
 "And didn t. Nay, more! in death s despite 
 The crippled Skeleton learned to write. 
 Dear mother, at first, of course ; and then 
 Dear captain, inquiring about the men. 
 Captain s answer : of eighty and five, 
 Giffen and I are left alive. 
 
 "Word of gloom from the war, one day ; 
 Johnston pressed at the front, they say. 
 Little Giffen was up and away ; 
 A tear his first as he bade good-by, 
 Dimmed the glint of his steel-blue eye. 
 I ll write, if spared ! There was news of the fight ; 
 But none of Giffen he did not write. 
 
 "I sometimes fancy that, were I king 
 Of the princely Knights of the Golden Ring, 
 With the song of the minstrel in mine ear, 
 And the tender legend that trembles here, 
 I d give the best on his bended knee, 
 The whitest soul of my chivalry,^ 
 For Little Giffen, of Tennessee." 
 
 I am sure even the small number of Dr. 
 Ticknor s poems which I have reproduced here 
 will be amply sufficient to justify the praise 
 which has been bestowed upon his best poetic 
 
Francis Orrery Ticknor 147 
 
 work, and that it is right to call him "one of 
 the truest and sweetest lyric poets this country 
 has yet produced." As expressing my own 
 opinion of him as man and as poet, I cannot do 
 better than to quote the concluding paragraph 
 of Hayne s memoir : 
 
 "The man s soul, sturdy yet gentle, stal 
 wart yet touched by a feminine sweetness 
 informed them always ; and, if it can hardly be 
 said of his lyrics that each was polished as the 
 bosom of a star/ still the light irradiating them 
 seldom failed to be light from the heaven of true 
 inspiration." 
 
MARGARET JUNKIN PRESTON 
 
 Margaret Junkin Preston was born in the city 
 of Philadelphia in 1820. Her father, the Rev. 
 Dr. Junkin, who was the founder of the Lafay 
 ette College, in Pennsylvania, moved to Vir 
 ginia and in 1848 became the president of 
 Washington College, in Lexington, now known 
 as the Washington and Lee University. Gen. 
 Robert E. Lee succeeded Dr. Junkin as presi 
 dent of this great institution of learning. 
 
 In 1857 Miss Junkin married Prof. J. T. L. 
 Preston, one of the faculty of Virginia Military 
 Institute, with which famous school he was 
 connected until his widely lamented death, July 
 15, 1890. Mrs. Preston s brother-in-law, the 
 immortal "Stonewall" Jackson, it will be 
 remembered, was for ten years one of the pro 
 fessors of this famous school. Mrs. Preston s 
 home was at Lexington, where she lived to 
 within a few years prior to her death, which 
 occurred in Baltimore, March 28, 1897. Her 
 son, George, is a prominent physician and sur 
 geon of Baltimore, and has made a name for 
 himself in medical literature. 
 
*7*~^ 
 
 FACING PACE 140 
 
Margaret Junkin Preston 149 
 
 Even as a girl Mrs. Preston was an earnest 
 and diligent student of literature, and .her bright 
 mind was influenced and cultivated by the study 
 of the works of great authors. The early 
 inclination of her taste in this direction is clearly 
 indicated by a passage in one of her charming 
 sketches of her travels in Europe, wherein she 
 describes Elleray, the home of Christopher 
 North ; she says : 
 
 "When I was a child of a dozen years I used 
 to pore with delight over dear Kit North s 
 Tights and Shadows of Scottish Life, and 
 when I grew older I often carried, in my child 
 ish rambles, a volume of his Essays with me, 
 and his Noctes Ambrosianse I might well 
 know by heart; so Elleray was a sort of shrine 
 to me, and I came to it with something of a 
 pilgrim s veneration." 
 
 She was accustomed to read and study very 
 hard at night, and to this over-taxing of her 
 eyes, aggravated later on by a serious sickness, 
 was due the impairment of her eyesight, which 
 troubled her greatly in after life, compelling the 
 interruption of all literary labor by long inter-* 
 vals of rest. But with the assistance of an 
 amanuensis, she was, nevertheless, enabled to 
 produce a large amount of valuable literary 
 work, in verse and prose. Her contributions 
 appeared in high-class magazines and journals, 
 and she published five volumes of poems. 
 
150 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 She has enriched American literature. The 
 people of the South, especially, should be very 
 proud of her and cherish her memory. She 
 has been largely instrumental in establishing the 
 high esteem in which Southern literature is now 
 held among all discriminating students in this 
 country and in Europe. She consecrated her 
 abilities faithfully and ardently to the service of 
 the beautiful, the true, and the good. 
 
 There are but few female poets whose poetic 
 scope and singing powers are superior to those 
 of Mrs. Preston. She illustrates in a marked 
 manner the devotional, the religious spirit, the 
 pure ethics which, to an unusual degree, char 
 acterize the best work of our best Southern 
 poets. Referring to her partial blindness 
 which, continually growing worse, finally com 
 pelled her to abstain from writing altogether, 
 the case of Philip Bourke Marston, the blind 
 English poet, has a peculiarly pathetic interest. 
 In Mrs. Preston s sketch of Marston, published 
 in Lippincott s Magazine after the poet s death, 
 she says : 
 
 "From his writings it would never be gath 
 ered that he was blind; nor, indeed, was he 
 willing that in the slightest degree any abate 
 ment in the judgment formed of his poems 
 should be made, in consequence of his terrible 
 affliction. Nor would he have let it been 
 known, could he have helped it, that he was 
 blind; he was very adverse to having his 
 
Margaret Junkin Preston 151 
 
 calamity alluded to, and in both his prose and 
 poetical writings, and in all his letters, he con 
 stantly speaks like a man who had clear eye 
 sight." 
 
 Mrs. Preston and Mr. Marston were great 
 friends, and corresponded with each other 
 frequently. 
 
 Like many others of the sons and daughters 
 of Genius, Mrs. Preston "learned in suffering" 
 what she has "taught in song." She was often 
 made to pass through the fiery furnace of 
 affliction. In the laurels twined about her 
 brow many a sharp thorn of sorrow was hidden. 
 Her severest domestic bereavement was the 
 death of her noble and brilliant husband. The 
 terrible blow shattered an ideal home, and 
 nearly crushed her heart. But her profound 
 religious faith, her unwavering trust in the 
 Saviour, her pure heart, her hope of immor 
 tality, not only sustained her in all her trials, 
 but added sweetness, light and strength to her 
 spirit, a deeper insight, a more delicate charm, 
 a loftier range to her poetry. Concerning her 
 method of work, she once wrote to a friend : 
 
 "I have never given myself up to literature 
 as my life-work, because too busy a wife, 
 mother, and friend for that luxury for many 
 years I have been the mistress of too large a 
 household, to be able to command the wide 
 margins of leisure which go to the making of 
 a literary life. In the dedication of Old Song 
 
152 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 and New, in a sonnet s breadth, is the account 
 of the way I have always written. The poems 
 that would have utterance, were crowded 
 mainly into some little interstice not at the 
 moment filled with more imperative things." 
 
 This book "Old Song- and New" contains 
 many fine and vigorous poems, portraying 
 nature, and human life, in their manifold 
 phases. 
 
 "Silverwood : A Book of Memories," which 
 appeared in 1856, was her first published book. 
 It is a story descriptive of Southern life, simple, 
 true, and full of tender feeling. Its keynote 
 is struck by the epigraph which its author 
 selected: "From the sessions of sweet, silent 
 thought, I summon up remembrances." 
 
 "Beechenbrook" is a narrative poem of the 
 war between the States, written during the 
 terrible conflict. It is the story of a Southern 
 homestead. The mistress of that home is the 
 heroine ; the hero is a Confederate officer, who 
 fights and dies for the cause of the South. The 
 theme of the poem depicts the experiences of 
 the wife in equipping her husband for the field; 
 her endurance of the agony of suspense while 
 he is "at the front" ; the privations and suffer 
 ings she was called upon to endure, in common 
 with the heroic women of the South, during 
 those dark days, and her glorious resignation 
 when the final and fatal blow came. It is a 
 
Margaret Junkin Preston 153 
 
 poem vivid with fire and action and is still a 
 valued book in many a Southern household. 
 
 Then followed from the press "Old Song 
 and New," "Cartoons from the Old Masters," 
 "For Love s Sake," and "Colonial Ballads, 
 Sonnets and Other Verse." This last volume 
 is dedicated to her friend, Jean Ingelow. The 
 "Colonial Ballads" are spirited narratives of 
 historic events and legends, taken from the 
 earliest annals of our country. Alluding to 
 this book the author says : "One would think 
 I was a regular daughter of the Puritans, when, 
 truth to tell, I have not a drop of Puritan blood 
 in my veins." The sonnets in this volume are 
 graceful and artistic ; in fact, few English poets 
 excel Mrs. Preston s work in this difficult 
 branch of the poetic art. This volume also 
 contains the charming series of verse entitled 
 "Childhood of the Old Masters." 
 
 Mrs. Preston s prose is distinguished by 
 refinement of style, and pronounced originality. 
 Her "Aunt Dorothy," a story of old Virginia 
 plantation life, partly in dialect, is clever, and 
 bright with local color. In her "A Handful of 
 Monographs" she gives us in a most interesting 
 way an account of her experiences, impressions 
 and observations during her travels in Europe. 
 Among other prominent examples of her ele 
 vated prose style must be mentioned her sketch 
 of "Stonewall" Jackson, in the Century Maga 
 zine, and the biographical sketch of her life- 
 
154 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 long friend, Paul Hamilton Hayne, which 
 forms the introduction to the complete edition 
 of the works of the poet. 
 
 Many of her best poems appeared in the 
 religions and secular press, and some of her 
 most notable poems were written for public 
 celebrations in honor of famous men or great 
 historic events. The one written for the Edgar 
 Allan Poe ovation in New York is one of the 
 finest products of her pen ; it was entitled 
 
 "AT LAST. 
 
 "If he were here tonight the strange rare poet, 
 
 Whose sphinx-like face no jestings could beguile 
 To meet the award at last, and feel and know it 
 Securely his how grand would be his smile ! 
 
 "How would the waves of wordless grief, that over 
 
 His haughty soul had swept through surging years, 
 Sink to a mystic calm, till he would cover 
 His proud pale face to hide the happy tears ! 
 
 "Who knows the secret of that strange existence 
 That world within a world how far, how near ; 
 Like thought for closeness, like a star for distance 
 Who knows? The conscious essence may be here. 
 
 "If from its viewless bounds the soul has power 
 
 To free itself for some ethereal flight, 
 How strange to think the compensating hour 
 For all the tragic past, may be tonight ! 
 
 "To feel that, where the galling scoffs and curses 
 
 Of Fate fell heaviest on his blasted track, 
 There, Fame herself the spite of Fate reverses 
 Might almost win the restless spirit back. 
 
Margaret Junkin Preston 155 
 
 "Though the stern Tuscan, exiled, desolated, 
 
 Lies mid Ravenna s marshes far away, 
 At Santa Croce, still his stone is feted, 
 
 And Florence piles her violets there today ! 
 
 "Though broken-hearted the sad singer perished, 
 With woe outworn, amid the convent s gloom, 
 Yet how pathetic are the memories cherished, 
 When Rome keeps Tasso s birthday at his tomb ! 
 
 "So, though our poet sank beneath life s burden, 
 
 Benumbed and reckless through the crush of fate ; 
 And though, as comes so oft, the yearned-for guerdon, 
 No longer yearned for, since it came too late : 
 
 "He is avenged tonight! No blur is shrouding 
 
 The flame his genius feeds : the wise, the brave, 
 And good, and young, and beautiful are crowding 
 Around, to scatter heart s-ease o er his grave ! 
 
 "And his Virginia, like a tender mother 
 
 Who breathes above her errant boy no blame, 
 Stoops down to kiss his pallid lips, and smother 
 In pride her sorrow, as she names his name. 
 
 " Could he have only seen in vatic vision 
 
 The gorgeous pageant present to our eyes, 
 His soul had known one glimpse of joy elysian ! 
 Can we call no man happy till he dies ?" 
 
 Her "Centennial Ode" for the Washington 
 and Lee University is also a notable example 
 of her Muse in its most elevated mood. But 
 it is in themes that appeal to the holiest senti 
 ments of the heart, that uplift the imagination 
 to the serene height of spiritual contemplation, 
 that touch the conscience or depict the essential 
 elements of religious faith it is in these fields 
 that Mrs. Preston s poetic powers show them- 
 
156 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 selves at their best. Her dominating- devo 
 tional nature is happily illustrated by the fol 
 lowing incident, and in her own words : "One 
 day, as I was sighing over the fast falling 
 leaves, my gay-hearted young niece said to me, 
 Oh, but think how much more room it gives 
 you to see the beautiful blue sky beyond/ Is 
 it not a sweet thought, she says, that as our 
 little joys and pleasures, and earth s many 
 lovely things fade and pass away, they open 
 spaces for us, through which we may look into 
 the illimitable depths above us ? To those who 
 mourn lost treasures, earth is sad; but, then, 
 how many happy homes and happy hearts there 
 are, after all, and it becomes us to say, with 
 our dear Elizabeth Browning: 
 
 " Through dearth and death, 
 Through fire and frost, 
 With emptied arms, and treasures lost, 
 We praise Thee while the days go on. " 
 
 From the clear fountains of love and faith, 
 that flow from the hearts of children, Mrs. 
 Preston frequently drank the inspiration which 
 quickens her verse; and many a tender lesson 
 she has drawn from the artless charm of child 
 hood, and its winning ways. Let me illustrate 
 this by quoting a pertinent poem from her 
 "Ballad and Other Verse" ; it is called 
 
Margaret Junkin Preston 157 
 
 "THE ANGEL UNAWARE. 
 
 "Abroad on the landscape pale and cold, 
 
 Blurred with a patter of autumn rain, 
 I gazed, and questioned if it could hold 
 
 Ever the sweet, old joy again. 
 The color had faded from earth and sky, 
 
 Mists hung low where the light had lain, 
 And through the willows a fretful sigh 
 
 Moaned as their branches swept the pane. 
 
 " My days must darken as these/ I said 
 
 Out of my life must summer go ; 
 Its russetcd memories, dim and dead, 
 
 Shiver along my pathway so ; 
 No more the elastic life comes back 
 
 The leap of heart and the spirit-glow 
 That never had sense of loss or lack, 
 
 Whether my lot were glad or no. 
 
 "But here on my musings broke a child, 
 
 Fresh from a rush in the pinching air ; 
 And, kissing my hand, she gayly smiled, 
 
 Speaking no word, but leaving there 
 A handful of heart s-ease, blithe and bright. 
 
 What had become of my cloud of care? 
 It had haloed itself in a ring of light . 
 
 Over the angel unaware I" 
 
 This pure, predominating note of spiritual 
 ity, this ever-present sense of the value of the 
 inner life of man, this deep consciousness of the 
 high and eternal purpose for which the human 
 soul is created, are the leading characteristics 
 of Mrs. Preston s poetry. There is no artifice 
 in her verse. She writes from the heart. Her 
 ideals are lofty, and her treatment never lowers 
 them. Her versification is smooth, elegant, 
 and melodious. She awakens in her readers 
 
158 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 wholesome thoughts and good aspirations, and 
 always gratifies the artistic sense in the struc 
 ture of her verse. 
 
 Concerning the essentially religious atmos 
 phere which is such a distinct attribute of Mrs. 
 Preston s poetry, I may be here permitted to 
 indulge in some remarks on religious poetry in 
 general. Dr. Samuel Johnson, in his life of 
 Waller, touches upon this subject in massive 
 words, which are occasionally quoted by critics 
 as a justification for the assumption that relig 
 ious verse, in the very nature of things poetic, 
 cannot be verse of the highest order. These 
 critics are of the opinion that Johnson con 
 demns religious poetry as unsuitable for the 
 loftiest flights of the Muse, and that success 
 has rarely been attained in devotional verse. 
 Dr. Johnson says : 
 
 "Of sentiments purely religious it will be 
 found that the most simple expression is the 
 most sublime. Poetry loses its luster and its 
 power because it is applied to the decoration of 
 something more excellent than itself. All that 
 pious verse can do is to help the memory and 
 delight the ear; and for these purposes it may 
 be very useful; but it supplies nothing to the 
 mind. The ideas of Christian theology are too 
 simple for eloquence, too sacred for fiction, and 
 too majestic for ornament ; to recommend them 
 by tropes and figures, is to magnify by a con 
 cave mirror the siderial hemisphere." 
 
Margaret Junkin Preston 159 
 
 The tests of truth and experience, in my 
 opinion, prove the learned Doctor s dictum 
 faulty. Scriptural and devotional themes are 
 as well suited for the highest flights of poetical 
 genius as any other theme worthy of the con 
 templation and elaboration of the sons and 
 daughters of Song. It is necessary only to 
 point to the works of Milton, Young, Cowper 
 and Dryden, to Pope s "Messiah," and to 
 hundreds of others, in all countries, who have 
 embellished the literature of the world with 
 sacred and devotional poetry, in order to prove 
 that this class of writing is the peer of any, and 
 that it is able to express the highest art and the 
 noblest genius. Dr. Johnson, in his criticism 
 of Waller and Watts, does not directly say that 
 religious subjects are unfit for poetic treatment, 
 but writers, on his authority, have said so, 
 purposely or ignorantly misunderstanding his 
 true meaning, which appears to be that the style 
 of devotional poetry must be suited to the 
 theme, whether that be a subject of piety or a 
 motive to piety a statement with which we all 
 must agree. 
 
 It is true that a great deal of so-called relig 
 ious poetry is simply trash; but so is a vast 
 amount of stuff written on secular themes, and 
 sadly miscalled "poetry." But many of our 
 hymn-writers are true poets, and their verse 
 genuine poetry. Their abilities, as Milton 
 sublimely says, "are the inspired gifts of God, 
 
160 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 rarely bestowed, and are of power to imbreed 
 and cherish in a great people the seeds of virtue 
 and public civility; to allay perturbations of the 
 mind, and set the affections in right tune; to 
 celebrate in glorious and lofty hymns the throne 
 and equipage of God s almightiness, and what 
 He works and what He suffers to be wrought 
 with high providence in the Church; to sing 
 victorious agonies of martyrs and saints, the 
 deeds and triumphs of pious nations, doing 
 valiantly through faith against the enemies of 
 Christ" 
 
 These distinguishing qualities of genuine 
 religious poetry are amply apparent in Mrs. 
 Preston s collection of poems of faith and com 
 fort published under the title of "For Love s 
 Sake." These poems, the author says, were 
 published "for the good they may do." Ah, 
 who can estimate fully the extent of that 
 "good" ? Poetry of this sort is never limited 
 by time or circumstance. It may affect a life, 
 or change the course of a soul. That which is 
 eternal has no limitations. 
 
 Mrs. Preston never paints a cloud through 
 which the eye of faith cannot see the shining 
 of the everlasting stars. Every cross has its 
 crown. Her page is illumined by "the light 
 that never was on sea or land." In her garden 
 of poesy bloom the perennial flowers of love, 
 faith, and hope ; the laurel and the palm top the 
 loftiest heights of her conceptions. No purer, 
 
Margaret Junkin Preston 161 
 
 sweeter voice was ever heard in the choir of 
 our native songsters nay, in many particulars 
 she leads them all, and her only rival among 
 recent writers of devotional verse in England 
 is Frances Ridley Havergal. By the side of 
 Mrs. Preston s pure, earnest, simple, soulful 
 and liquid verse, some of the devotional poetry 
 of Mrs. Hemans, of Moore, Byron, Willis, 
 sounds artificial and strained ; their hymns and 
 Scriptural poems are conventional; the keen 
 eye of Christian faith detects the flaw in their 
 polished marble; the inner ear hears the dis 
 cordant jar of the silver strings a true soul 
 only can sing true songs ; behind the true artist 
 must stand the true man. 
 
 It is difficult to select examples out of this 
 little volume, where all are gems "of purest ray 
 serene." Where can be found a sweeter, 
 gentler embodiment of childlike faith in the 
 paternal love of the Saviour, than in the sonnet 
 entitled "Doubt" ? The poem which gives the 
 book its title is also a beautiful one. "Read to 
 Sleep," with its deep pathos, will bedim our 
 eyes with sympathetic tears. "Sanctum Sanc 
 torum," and "Who Knoweth," are radiant with 
 the celestial light of truth and love. In this 
 volume, as in the majority of Mrs. Preston s 
 poems, hearts that need the solace of religion, 
 all who want to find expression for the thoughts 
 of the soul when it contemplates the mysteries 
 of Life and Death, all who suffer and are heavy 
 
162 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 laden, will find comfort, and rest, and the peace 
 that passeth understanding. How touchingly 
 she gives lyric utterance to the divine desire for 
 immortality, for the reunion with our loved 
 ones in the spirit-life beyond the grave, in the 
 sonnet entitled 
 
 "WE TWO. 
 
 "Ah, painful-sweet ! how can I take it in ! 
 That somewhere in the illimitable blue 
 Of God s pure space, which men call Heaven, we two 
 Again shall find each other, and begin 
 The infinite life of love, a life akin 
 To angels, only angels never knew 
 The ecstasy of blessedness that drew 
 Us to each other, even in this world of sin. 
 
 "Yea, find each other ! The remotest star 
 Of all the galaxies would hold in vain 
 Our souls apart, that have been, heretofore, 
 As closely interchangeable as are 
 One mind and spirit: Oh, joy that aches to pain, 
 To be together we two forever more !" 
 
 Permit me to digress here briefly for the 
 purpose of discussing, in a general way, the 
 subject of ordinary verse-writing, which has 
 become one of the fashionable pastimes of the 
 day. No class, profession, or trade seems to 
 be exempt from the ravages of amateur rhyme- 
 making. It bids fair to become as great a 
 public nuisance as professional base-ball play 
 ing. Sentimental misses in their teens, whose 
 embryo souls float like "airy nothings" on 
 moonbeams, feeding on flirtations and flowers, 
 
Margaret Junkin Preston 163 
 
 and developing chronic dyspepsia by cramming 
 their suffering stomachs with ice-cream and 
 caramels; petrified spinsters of uncertain age, 
 whose hearts live on the "might-have-been" 
 memories of their maiden past, hopelessly, yet 
 fondly still, striving to warm themselves by 
 occasionally stirring the ashes and embers of 
 the fires which once burned upon the ruined 
 shrines of their youth s romance; crusty 
 bachelors, of a moralizing, pessimistic turn of 
 mind, the result of spleen and the soured milk 
 of human kindness; old men and women, 
 whose natural garrulity finds pleasant vent in 
 harmless metrical effusions, distinguishable 
 from senile prose only by the trick of rhyming 
 words at the end of the lines all this host of 
 amateurs, to which must be added "the mob of 
 gentlemen (and ladies) who write" profession 
 ally, the regularly licensed manufacturers of 
 poetical ware, the haberdashers-in-ordinary to 
 his majesty, the King of the Muses all this 
 heterogeneous multitude combine to fill the 
 groves of Parnassus with their chirpings, 
 nestled in the sheltering leaves of our maga 
 zines, piping lustily from the columns of our 
 newspapers, or boldly rushing into the literary 
 market between the covers of prettily printed 
 books, in red, white or blue binding, with some 
 romantic name, in gay and gorgeous golden 
 letters, smiling from the title-page at the 
 hesitating book-buyer. 
 
164 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 Wandering over the flat and monotonous 
 wilderness of modish verse-mongery, the sight 
 of an oasis, where golden- fruited palms and 
 fragrant flowers indicate the presence of 
 Pierian springs of pure poetry, comes like a 
 vision of celestial delight to the weary soul of 
 the wayfarer. He enters and rests beside the 
 pure and living waters and, with a hearty 
 "thank God !" quenches the thirst of his soul. 
 
 The feeble chirpings of the callow broods 
 that harbor in the bric-a-brac bushes of the arid 
 region beyond, are forgotten as we listen to the 
 rapturous melody of the lark "singing at 
 Heaven s gate," or to the mocking-bird s won 
 derful song, who gives us the whole orchestra 
 of the woods at once through his own little 
 silvery throat. When the true, the born poet 
 sings, the heavens listen, and the heart of man 
 is strangely stirred, as in the presence of a 
 divine thing. He sings of hope, joy, sorrow, 
 faith, patriotism, love of all that constitutes 
 the immortal part of man. He deals in eterni 
 ties, in the spiritual and poetic phases of the 
 universe. He is inspired of God ; he is one of 
 His prophets, a teacher of divine and everlast 
 ing verities. The true, the born poet looks 
 upon the gift of genius as a holy trust, for the 
 proper exercise of which he expects to be held 
 responsible before the judgment bar of God. 
 But, pray, what good purpose do the "tweedle 
 dum, tweedle dee" rhymesters of our day serve? 
 The emblem of the true poet is the eagle, whose 
 
Margaret Junkin Preston 165 
 
 mighty wings bear him upward to the sun, 
 "sailing in supreme dominion, through the 
 azure deep of air," but the bric-a-brac, tum-de- 
 dum de tum-de-dum rhymester is as little fitted 
 to fly as the tadpole, yet he passes as a singer, 
 and imposes his rhymed inanities upon a long 
 suffering and altogether too indulgent reading 
 public. But I have maligned the reputation of 
 a respectable tadpole by forcing him into com 
 parison with twaddling rhymesters, for the tad 
 pole has within him the power of developing 
 and, in due time, he will grow into an honest, 
 full-grown frog ; but who has ever heard of the 
 development of a poetaster into a poet? He 
 remains a poetically undeveloped "pollywog" 
 forever ! 
 
 It is impossible to repress reflections akin to 
 the foregoing, whenever we are called upon to 
 show the contrast between poetasterish verse- 
 making, the dabbling in rhymed gush and skim- 
 milk sentimentality, and the really inspired 
 work of true poets, among whom, by divine 
 right of genius, Mrs. Preston will always hold 
 a place of honor. Her work as does the work 
 of every true poet worthily illustrates the 
 following quatrain which, by personification, 
 attempts to give a definition of poetry, as well 
 as a description of the queen of the Muses : 
 
 "Her form is Beauty, and her soul is Truth ; 
 She knows not death hers is immortal youth ; 
 Her native speech is Song ; who listens hears 
 The voice of God, and music of the spheres." 
 
EDWARD COATE PINKNEY 
 
 In the rush and whirl of this modern world 
 of ours the man whom Death has taken off the 
 crowded stage of Life is soon forgotten ; there 
 are but few exceptions to this general rule, and 
 even these exceptions, the great names, the 
 lofty mountain-peaks of Science, Art, Litera 
 ture, lose their original distinctness, growing 
 dimmer as the mists of time envelop them ; only 
 here and there some star of the first magnitude 
 still shimmers on the horizon, a speck of glory 
 in the gray twilight of the past; the lesser 
 lights, however, do not linger long, and are 
 soon lost from sight in the blank void of 
 oblivion. 
 
 Voices that once thrilled the world with the 
 power of eloquent utterance, or charmed it with 
 the melody of sweet and impassionate verse, 
 fade at last into thin and almost indistinguish 
 able echoes. 
 
 Even poets are no exception to this inexor 
 able rule. If we will look back over two or 
 three generations, confining our view to the 
 limits of our own country, and more particu 
 larly to the narrow province of Poetry, how 
 
Edward Coate Pinkney 167 
 
 few are the names that still shine undimmed by 
 the mists of time! On the other hand, how 
 many there are even of once well-known 
 names one must now, regretfully, inscribe on 
 the constantly lengthening list of "forgotten 
 poets" ! 
 
 It is my purpose to deal, briefly, with one of 
 these "forgotten poets" ; nevertheless, a true 
 poet; one who, in his day, deservedly won 
 the praise of his contemporaries; who sang 
 exquisite songs and wrote noble poems, worthy 
 of preservation; and yet his name is now rarely 
 mentioned; a song or two of his, perhaps, may 
 be occasionally quoted, and yet it is more than 
 likely that the person quoting them is not able 
 to give the name of the author. I have refer 
 ence to Edward Coate Pinkney, of whom Poe, 
 in his characteristic way, once said : "It was 
 the misfortune of Mr. Pinkney to have been 
 born too far South. Had he been a New 
 Englander, it is probable that he would have 
 been ranked as the first of American lyrists." 
 
 Edward Coate Pinkney was born in London, 
 October i, 1802, while his father, the famous 
 William Pinkney, was United States minister 
 to Great Britain. His mother was the sister 
 of Commodore Rogers. In 1811 the family 
 returned to the United States, and again estab 
 lished their residence in Baltimore, where the 
 boy became a student in Baltimore College. 
 He made rapid progress in his studies, and even 
 
168 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 at this early age gave proof of intellectual gifts 
 of a high order. When fourteen years of age 
 his uncle, Commodore Rogers, procured for 
 him the appointment of midshipman in the 
 Navy, in which he served six years. In the 
 course of his duties he became acquainted with 
 various parts of the globe; visiting many scenes 
 of classic story, especially during a long cruise 
 in the Mediterranean. His beautiful poem 
 "Italy" shows clearly the profound impressions 
 which that ideal land of art, romance, and song 
 made upon the young poet s imagination. 
 
 On the death of his father, in 1822, he 
 resigned his position in the Navy and returned 
 to Baltimore, studied law, and was admitted 
 to the bar of that city, and devoted himself to 
 his law practice, finding time, however, amid 
 the exacting duties of a lawyer, to court the 
 Muses and exercise the lyric genius with which 
 Nature had so richly endowed him. 
 
 On October 12, 1824, he married Miss 
 Georgiana McCausland, a very beautiful and 
 accomplished young lady, who was, doubtless, 
 the inspiration for his delightful lyric "A 
 Health," and whose charms he has so grace 
 fully pictured in "A Picture Song." 
 
 In the following years a small volume of his 
 poems appeared from the press of Joseph 
 Robinson, but the leading poem in this collec 
 tion, "Rodolph," had appeared in print pre 
 viously, but anonymously. The reading public, 
 
Edward Coate Pinkney 169 
 
 as well as the critics, gave the volume a hearty 
 reception, and its success induced the author to 
 print another edition, enlarged by the addition 
 of several fine miscellaneous poems. "Rodolph" 
 is a long, romantic story of love and crime, in 
 the Byronic vein, abounding in allusions to 
 classical myths and metaphors, yet, although 
 there are lines full of genuine poetic beauty, the 
 style of the poem is rather stilted, and the 
 general effect of the poem is monotonous. But 
 in the miscellaneous poems, and in the songs 
 contained in this little book, of which we doubt 
 that a single copy can be found to-day, there 
 are gems of poesy unsurpassed in beauty and 
 brilliancy in English literature. 
 
 In 1826 he was appointed professor of 
 rhetoric and belles-lettres in the University of 
 Maryland, and in the following year assumed 
 the editorship of a political journal published 
 in Baltimore, and called The Marylander. His 
 health, however, was failing rapidly, and on 
 April n, 1828, at the age of twenty-six, he 
 died. His grave is in Greenmount cemetery. 
 
 In an introduction to a collection of Pink- 
 ney s poems, N. P. Willis asks this question, 
 "What would poetry be in a world where Toil 
 is not the inseparable twin of Excellence ?" In 
 discussing the curious question further, Willis 
 says : "The wild horse runs very well in the 
 prairie, but we give our admiration to the good 
 continue!*/ whose powers of endurance have 
 
170 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 been developed by toilsome training". Whether 
 the faineant angels, who sit in the clouds, 
 admire most the objectless careerings of the 
 wild steed, or the arrowy endurance of the 
 winner of the sweep-stakes whether the frag 
 mentary poetry, dashed off while the inspira 
 tion is on, and checked, ill-finished, when the 
 whim evaporates, be more celestial than the 
 smooth and complete product of painful toil 
 and disciplined concentration I have had my 
 luxurious doubts. Pinkney s genius, as evi 
 denced on paper, has all the impulsive abandon 
 ment which marked his character and course of 
 life. He was a born poet with all needful 
 imagination, discrimination, perception, and 
 sensibility; and he had, besides, the flesh and 
 blood fulness necessary to keep poetry on terra 
 firma." 
 
 In my opinion the rich and fervid imagina 
 tion of this poet, his power to paint pictures 
 with words, his command of rhythmic music, 
 his classic elegance of diction, are qualities 
 which exhibit themselves at their best in his 
 poem "Italy/ Written in the manner of 
 Goethe s "Kennst Du das Land," it contains 
 passages of supreme beauty. I quote it in full : 
 
 "ITALY. 
 
 "Know st thou the land which lovers ought to choose ? 
 Like blessings there descend the sparkling dews; 
 In gleaming streams the crystal rivers run ; 
 The purple vintage clusters in the sun; 
 
Edward Coate Pinkney 171 
 
 Odors of flowers haunt the balmy breeze, 
 
 Rich fruits hang high upon the vernant trees ; 
 
 And vivid blossoms gem the shady groves, 
 
 Where bright-plumed birds discourse their careless loves. 
 
 Beloved ! speed we from this sullen strand, 
 
 Until thy light feet press that green shore s yellow sand. 
 
 "Look seaward thence, and naught shall meet thine eye 
 But fairy isles, like paintings on the skv, 
 And, flying fast and free before the gale, 
 The gaudy vessel with its glancing sail ; 
 And waters glittering in the glare of noon, 
 Or touched with silver by the stars and moon, 
 Or flecked with broken lines of crimson light, 
 When the far fisher s fire affronts the night. 
 Lovely as loved ! toward that smiling shore 
 Bear we our household gods, to fix for evermore. 
 
 "It looks a dimple on the face of earth, 
 The seal of beauty, and the shrine of mirth ; 
 Nature is delicate and graceful there, 
 The place s genius, feminine and fair : 
 The winds are awed, nor dare to breathe aloud; 
 The air seems never to have borne a cloud, 
 Save where volcanoes send to heaven their curled 
 And solemn smokes, like altars of the world. 
 Thrice beautiful ! to that delightful spot 
 Carry our married hearts, and be all pain forgot. 
 
 "There Art too shows, when Nature s beauty palls, 
 Her sculptured marbles, and her pictured walls ; 
 And there are forms in which they both conspire 
 To whisper themes that know not how to tire : 
 The speaking ruins in that gentle clime 
 Have but been hallowed by the hand of Time, 
 And each can mutely prompt some thought of flame 
 The meanest stone is not without a name. 
 Then come, beloved ! hasten o er the sea, 
 To build our happy hearth in blooming Italy." 
 
 Surely it would be difficult indeed to find 
 lines more felicitous in their description of the 
 land of Art and Song. 
 
172 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 In the poem entitled "The Old Tree," wherein 
 he touches upon memories of his childhood, 
 Time is personified in a fine stanza ; he calls him 
 
 "The great Reformist, that each day removes 
 The old, yet never on the old improves 
 The dotard Time, that like a child destroys, 
 As sport or spleen may prompt, his ancient toys, 
 And shapes their ruins into something new." 
 
 The sad feeling which accompanies our con 
 sciousness of the slight value and the evanescent 
 character of fame, is well expressed in this 
 verse : 
 
 "Pass, wasted powers ; alike the grave 
 To which I fast go down, 
 Will give the joy of nothingness 
 To me, and to renown ; 
 Unto its careless tenants, fame 
 Is idle as that gilded name, 
 Of vanity the crown, 
 Helvetian hands inscribed upon 
 The forehead of a skeleton." 
 
 From the "Prologue" he wrote and read at 
 an entertainment in Baltimore for the benefit 
 of the Greeks, then engaged in their struggle 
 for independence 1823 I quote the follow 
 ing ringing lines : 
 
 "We are free, 
 
 And so can wish the total earth to be; 
 Greece shall Greece is each old heroic shade, 
 Draws with her living sons his spectral blade, 
 And combats, proud of times so like his own, 
 Like Theseus ghost at storied Marathon!" 
 
Edward Coate Pinkney 173 
 
 But as a painter of female loveliness, as a 
 writer of love-lyrics, as an interpreter of the 
 language and dreams of Love, Pinkney stands 
 in the front rank of our singers. Some of them 
 have been well described as "entire and perfect 
 chrysolites." In four lines of one of these 
 songs, what a brilliant portrait of a beautiful 
 woman the poet gives us 
 
 "Exchanging luster with the sun, 
 
 A part of day she strays 
 A glancing, living human smile, 
 On Nature s face that plays." 
 
 How classically pure and delicate are these 
 lines from "A Picture Song" : 
 
 "Apollo placed his harp, of old, awhile upon a stone, 
 Which has resounded since, when struck, a breaking 
 
 harp-string s tone ; 
 And thus my heart, though wholly now from early 
 
 softness free, 
 If touched, will yield the music yet, it first received of 
 
 thee." 
 
 Again, culling at random, I take from one 
 short poem the following three couplets : 
 
 "Woman, a child of Morning then 
 A spirit still compared with men." 
 
 "The low strange hum of herbage growing, 
 The voice of hidden waters flowing." 
 
 "Wet rain-stars are thy lucid eyes, 
 The Hyades of earthly skies." 
 
174 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 Listen to this delicious lyric there is not a 
 more perfect love-song in the English language ; 
 it is Pinkney s 
 
 "THE SERENADE. 
 
 "Look out upon the stars, my love, 
 
 And shame them with thine eyes, 
 On which, than on the lights above, 
 
 There hang more destinies ; 
 Night s beauty is the harmony 
 
 Of blending shades and light; 
 Then, Lady, up look out, and be 
 
 A sister to the Night ! 
 
 "Sleep not! Thine image wakes for aye 
 
 Within my watching breast ; 
 Sleep not ! from her soft sleep should fly, 
 
 Who robs all hearts of rest ; 
 Nay, Lady, from thy slumbers break, 
 
 And make the darkness gay, 
 With looks, whose brightness well might make 
 
 Of darker nights a day." 
 
 The very soul of chivalric love, the sweetest 
 music that can be charmed from the minstrel- 
 lute of Eros, lives in and breathes from the 
 following 
 
 "SONG. 
 
 "We break the glass, whose sacred wine 
 
 To some beloved health we drain, 
 Lest future pledges, less divine, 
 
 Should e er the hallowed toy profane ; 
 And thus I broke a heart that poured 
 
 Its tide of feelings out for thee, 
 In draughts by after-time deplored, 
 
 Yet dear to memory. 
 
Edward Coate Pinkney 175 
 
 "But still the old impassioned ways 
 
 And habits of my mind remain ; 
 And still ( unhappy "light displays 
 
 Thine image, chambered in my brain ; 
 And still it looks as when the hours 
 
 Went by like flights of singing-birds, 
 Or that soft chain of spoken flowers 
 
 And airy gems, thy words." 
 
 But I must desist from delving still further 
 into the mine of this "forgotten" poet s gems of 
 song, despite the pleasure the employment 
 would give me. In conclusion I will reproduce 
 his spirited and brilliant poem entitled "A 
 Health" ; perfect in form and melody, it is 
 destined to live in our literature as long as the 
 sentiment it illustrates shall animate the hearts 
 of men, causing them to praise and to honor 
 the purity and the loveliness of the woman who 
 is, in the belief of every true lover, "of her 
 gentle sex the seeming paragon." 
 
 "A HEALTH. 
 
 "I fill this cup to one made up of loveliness alone, 
 A woman of her gentle sex the seeming paragon ; 
 To whom the better elements and kindly stars have 
 
 given 
 A form so fair, that like the air, tis less of earth than 
 
 heaven. 
 
 "Her every tone is music s own, like those of morning 
 
 birds, 
 And something more than melody dwells ever in her 
 
 words ; 
 The coinage of her heart are they, and from her lips 
 
 each flows 
 As one may see the burthened bee forth issue from the 
 
 rose. 
 
176 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 "Affections are as thoughts to her, the measure of her 
 
 hours ; 
 Her feelings have the fragrance, the freshness, of young 
 
 flowers ; 
 And lovely passions, changing oft, so fill her, she 
 
 appears 
 The image of themselves by turns the idol of past 
 
 years ! 
 
 "Of her bright face one glance will trace a picture on 
 
 the brain, 
 And of her voice in echoing hearts a sound must long 
 
 remain ; 
 
 But memory such as mine of her so very much endears, 
 When death is nigh my latest sigh will not be life s but 
 
 hers. 
 
 "I fill this cup to one made up of loveliness alone, 
 A woman of her gentle sex the seeming paragon 
 Her health ! and would on earth there stood some more 
 
 of such a frame, 
 That life might be all poetry, and weariness a name !" 
 
FACING PAGE 177 
 
THOMAS HOLLEY CHIVERS 
 
 From the list of so-called "forgotten poets," 
 in which the shining name of even so sweet and 
 brilliant a lyrist as Edward Coate Pinkney is 
 included, I select another, to whose life and 
 work peculiar circumstances, personal and 
 literary, have given more than ordinary 
 interest I have reference to Thomas Holley 
 Chivers, of Georgia, an erratic genius, a prolific 
 writer of poems unique in form, frequently 
 amazing in their bizarre fancy and chaotic 
 imagery, and yet, despite their incongruous 
 composition, showing frequent flashes of the 
 genuine poetic afflatus, which, in his day, 
 attracted to him the attention of the literary 
 world. 
 
 Dr. Thomas Holley Chivers was born at 
 Digby Manor, near Washington, Georgia, in 
 1807. His father was a rich planter, of 
 English ancestry, settled originally in Virginia. 
 Thomas Holley was the eldest of seven chil 
 dren. He graduated with honors in medicine 
 at Transylvania, now the University of Ken 
 tucky, in 1828. Practicing his profession for 
 a few years, Dr. Chivers finally devoted himself 
 
178 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 to literary pursuits, and achieved distinction 
 both in prose and in poetry. He was an accom 
 plished classical scholar, and was especially 
 conversant with the Hebrew language and its 
 literature. 
 
 When twenty-five years of age he went 
 North, marrying there Miss Harriet Hunt, by 
 whom he had four children, who died while 
 their parents were temporarily residing at 
 Digby Manor. A son and two daughters were 
 afterward born, and grew up. When the son 
 died, his four children were adopted by the 
 poet s second sister, Mrs. Brown, who is still, I 
 believe, a resident of Decatur, Georgia ; another 
 sister, Mrs. Potter, is living in Connecticut. 
 
 In 1856 Dr. Chivers made his final home in 
 Decatur, where he died on the eighteenth day 
 of December, 1858. 
 
 His versatility of talent was remarkable ; 
 even as an inventor he achieved success, 
 receiving a valuable prize at a State fair held 
 in Savannah, for his invention of a machine 
 adapted to the unwinding of the fiber of silk 
 cocoons, and he was also noted for his skill as 
 a portrait painter. His decease was widely 
 noted in the press of the United States, and 
 several European journals mentioned it. A 
 distinguished Danish author, Professor Gier- 
 low, wrote and published a beautiful poem as 
 a tribute to his memory. In a neglected and 
 obscure spot, in the little cemetery at Decatur, 
 
Thomas Holley drivers 179 
 
 in an unnoticed grave, the poet s remains lie 
 buried. Well may we ask, what is Fame? 
 
 Is it worth while to barter life for fame? 
 
 The hollow, mocking echo of a name, 
 
 Which, drifting down the years, dies out at last, 
 
 Lost in the soundless desert of the Past. 
 
 Judged by the portrait of him, which I have 
 seen, Dr. Chivers was a very handsome, distin 
 guished-looking gentleman. His mouth was 
 full and expressive, a broad forehead, large and 
 lustrous eyes, and long dark hair, marked him 
 distinctly as a person of culture and intellectual 
 prominence. Those who knew him personally 
 bear witness to his courtly manners, and the 
 charm of his conversational powers. William 
 Gilmore Simms took great interest in Chivers 
 and his writings, playfully calling him "the 
 wild Mazeppa of letters," teasing him about his 
 choice of strange words, and rallying him on 
 the "monotony of his sorrow," to which 
 friendly censure Chivers is said to have replied, 
 with equal good humor, advising Simms to stop 
 writing stupid novels, and "take up literature 
 as a pleasure." As so little seems to be publicly 
 known concerning the life and works of Dr. 
 Chivers, especially by the people of the South, 
 where he was born, among whom he lived and 
 labored for years, writing strange poems and 
 singing mystical songs, I am sure the biograph 
 ical facts I have given will be found interesting. 
 
180 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 I am indebted for these to Mr. Joel Benton s 
 sketch of Chivers, embodied in Mr. Benton s 
 charming little volume entitled "In the Poe 
 Circle" (Mansfield & Wessels, New York), 
 who, in turn, acknowledges his indebtedness to 
 Mr. John Quincy Adams, of Washington, 
 Georgia, a relative of the poet, for the authentic 
 data furnished. Mr. Benton s little book is a 
 valuable contribution to the history of Ameri 
 can literature, and students of the lives and 
 works of our poets owe gratitude to Mr. Benton 
 for his painstaking labor, and his piquant com 
 mentaries, in this attractive field. The book I 
 mention contains a collection of Mr. Benton s 
 articles on Edgar Allan Poe, published during 
 recent years in various magazines and journals, 
 the chapters embracing the following subjects : 
 I. The Precursor of Poe; II. The Poe-Chivers 
 Controversy; III. Poe s Opinion of the Raven ; 
 IV. Thomas Holley Chivers; V. Baudelaire 
 and Poe a brief parallel; VI. Bibliography, 
 enumerating a selected list of magazine articles 
 referring to Poe and his works, amounting to 
 one hundred and twenty-four articles. 
 
 The paramount interest of the book, to 
 Southern readers, particularly to Georgians, is 
 the fact that it associates with the great name 
 of Poe, the name of the Georgia poet, Chivers, 
 and recalls the details of the famous Poe- 
 Chivers controversy, which, from time to time, 
 engaged the attention of the literary world for 
 
Thomas Holley Chivers 181 
 
 many years. This controversy had its origin 
 in the alleged indebtedness of Poe, especially 
 in his immortal Raven, to the comparatively 
 obscure and unknown poet, as regards the 
 measure, the rhythmic conception, the peculiar 
 form, the style and "atmosphere" which distin 
 guish Poe s most remarkable poems. The 
 charge is made by Chivers himself, and by his 
 friends, that Poe appropriated these qualities 
 from his Georgia contemporary s methods of 
 poetical composition the haunting melody, 
 the bizarre phraseology, which make Poe s 
 poems so charmingly unique; that he, in fact, 
 passed them off as his own invention. This 
 statement is the basis for the claim that Chivers, 
 in these particulars, was the precursor of Poe. 
 Alluding to this, and speaking of Chivers, Mr. 
 Benton says : 
 
 "That he came very near to being a consid 
 erable poet, and that he embodies more of the 
 Poe atmosphere and melody than exist any 
 where out of Poe s verse, will not be hard to 
 prove. * * * Before Poe was known, this 
 poet T. H. Chivers, M. D. was writing 
 various weird and musical lyrics, which, I pre 
 sume, went from time to time through the 
 Southern press. Nearly sixty years ago he 
 began collecting them in book form, and there 
 were seven or eight volumes of them in all a 
 much more voluminous legacy than Poe s." 
 
182 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 One of these volumes was called "Eonchs of 
 Ruby," and a poem in it called "Lily Adair" 
 is the one which, according- to Mr. Benton s 
 opinion, shows the most remarkable coincidence 
 of accent, rhythm, and style with Poe s work, 
 provided Olivers wrote it before Poe was 
 known to him. Evidence is given which seems 
 to point to the fact that Chivers wrote in the 
 Poe manner over sixty, perhaps seventy, years 
 ago. Poe published the Raven in 1845. The 
 poem of Chivers reproduced in Mr. Benton s 
 book certainly appears to corroborate this state 
 ment. Other poems in the same volume, 
 "Eonchs of Ruby," deepen the impression of 
 remarkable coincidence, the general prevalence 
 of the Poe manner; the poem, for instance, 
 called "The Vigil of Aiden," with its refrain, 
 "Never, Nevermore," and 
 
 "While the Seraphim all waited, 
 At the portal congregated 
 Of the city golden-gated 
 Crying : Rise with thy Lenore !" 
 
 The same characteristic appears in the poem 
 "Avalon," the one called "Lord Uther s 
 Lament for Ella," and "The Dying Swan." 
 
 Mr. Benton calls attention to the many Poe- 
 like phrases peculiar to Chivers s poems, such 
 as "Aiden," "Auber," "Abysmal," "Eulalie," 
 ""Asphodel," "Evangel," "Avalon," etc. On 
 this point Mr. Benton comments as follows : 
 
Thomas Holley Chivers 183 
 
 "Two poets could not have fallen upon them 
 by original choice, to say nothing of the atmos 
 phere which was drawn around them. Of 
 course, there is no question that Poe used the 
 machinery and hypnotism better than Chivers 
 did or could. One leaves an immortal halo 
 around his name, and the other a nebulous mist 
 which failed to condense into a star." 
 
 The purport of Mr. Benton s criticism of the 
 poetry of Chivers examples of which he 
 quotes, to show its grotesqueness and absurd 
 pomp of phraseology is to the effect that, not 
 withstanding all this, if Chivers set the mould 
 and pace for Poe, on which Poe erected his own 
 fame, Chivers "will surely have some claim to 
 remembrance." 
 
 To Mr. Benton s opinion I beg to add my 
 own belief that Chivers, outside of the honor 
 of having "set the mould and pace for Poe," is 
 entitled to remembrance as a poet of erratic yet 
 distinct genius, and as the author of lines and 
 verses of much grace and beauty. That the 
 world knows nothing of him now, and that his 
 name is scarcely ever mentioned, save occasion 
 ally in connection with the Poe-Chivers contro 
 versy, should not be taken too seriously ; other 
 meritorious minor poets have lived and died 
 and faded out of view and the memory of the 
 world, leaving no claim to remembrance, save, 
 perhaps, a line or two in some biographical dic 
 tionary; yet, in their day and generation, they 
 
184 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 were recognized and honored as legitimate 
 children of the Muses and such a one was 
 Chivers. That he was noted in his time is an 
 unquestionable fact. From 1837 to 1858 he 
 published eight volumes of poems. He was a 
 contributor to some of the leading magazines 
 of that day. Bayard Taylor mentions him in 
 his "The Diversions of the Echo Club," and 
 says of him : "He is a phenomenon * * * 
 one of the finest images in modern poetry is in 
 his Apollo : 
 
 " Like cataracts of adamant uplifted into mountains, 
 Making oceans metropolitan for the splendor of the 
 dawn. " 
 
 He was known and appreciated in England. 
 It is stated that a complete set of his works is 
 on the shelves of the British Museum, and yet, 
 says Mr. Benton, the editor of Appleton s 
 Biographical Dictionary found it impossible to 
 get any facts of this Georgia poet s life, in spite 
 of diligent efforts to do so. 
 
 Swinburne was an admirer of Clivers s 
 poetry. When Bayard Taylor was in England, 
 thirty years ago, says Mr. Benton, the name of 
 Chivers happened to be mentioned in Swin 
 burne s presence. "Oh, Chivers, Chivers," 
 exclaimed Swinburne, "if you know Chivers, 
 give me your hand"; and Mr. Stedman says 
 that an allusion to Chivers, in Swinburne s 
 presence, would cause the latter to repeat, with 
 
Thomas Holley Chivers 185 
 
 great hilarity and gusto, whole passages from 
 Chivers s books. One critic, it is stated, sug 
 gested that Swinburne not only repeated 
 Chivers s verses, but that he has put into his 
 own poetry many marks of this American poet s 
 influence. 
 
 While the mass of Chivers s poetical work is 
 of small worth, Mr. Benton rather too slash- 
 ingly, I think, calls it "mainly trash," it is 
 nevertheless true that there are lines and stanzas 
 gleaming with the pure gold of poetic inspira 
 tion, and in form and manner show the touch 
 of an artist hand. Mr. Benton presents several 
 of Chivers s poems in full, besides numerous 
 extracts from others; but, for my purpose, it 
 will be sufficient to reproduce here only a few 
 quotations in justification of the opinion I have 
 expressed as to the fine poetic and lyric qualities 
 that can be found in the writings of Chivers; 
 for instance, here are four verses of a poem 
 originally published in the Waverly Magazine, 
 and called "The Little Boy Blue" 
 
 "The little boy blue 
 
 Was the boy that was born, 
 In the forests of Dew 
 On the mountains of Morn. 
 
 "There the pomegranate bells 
 
 They were made to denote 
 How much music now dwells 
 In the nightingale s throat. 
 
186 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 "On the green banks of On, 
 
 In the city of No, 
 There he taught the wild swan 
 Her white bugle to blow. 
 
 "Where the cherubim rode 
 
 On four lions of gold, 
 There this cherub abode 
 Making new what was old." 
 
 The following stanza is from "Ellen 
 (published in Philadelphia in 1836) : 
 
 "Like the Lamb s wife, seen in vision, 
 
 Coming down from heaven above, 
 Making earth like fields Elysian, 
 
 Golden City of God s love 
 Pure as jasper clear as crystal 
 
 Decked with twelve gates richly rare 
 Statued with twelve angels vestal 
 
 Was the form of Ellen yEyre 
 Gentle girl so debonair 
 
 Whitest, brightest of all cities, saintly angel, 
 Ellen yEyre." 
 
 The following is a remarkably Poesque 
 stanza from Chivers s poem, "Lily Adair" : 
 
 "From her Paradise-Isles in the ocean, 
 
 To the beautiful City of On, 
 By the mellifluent rivers of Goshen, 
 
 My beautiful Lily is gone ! 
 In her chariot of fire translated, 
 
 Like Elijah she passed through the air, 
 To the City of God, golden-gated 
 The home of my Lily Adair 
 Of my Star-crowned Lily Adair, 
 Of my God-loved Lily Adair 
 Of my beautiful, dutiful Lily Adair." 
 
Thomas Holley Chivers 187 
 
 From Chivers s poem "Avalon" Mr. Benton 
 quotes the following remarkable passages : 
 
 "For thou didst tread with fire-ensandalled feet, 
 
 Star-crowned, forgiven, 
 The burning diapason of the stars so sweet, 
 To God in Heaven. 
 
 "The violet of her soul-suffused eyes 
 
 Was like that flower 
 
 Which blows its purple trumpet at the skies, 
 For Dawn s first hour." 
 
 "Four little Angels killed by one cold Death 
 To make God glad !" 
 
 "Thou wert like Taleisin, full of eyes/ 
 
 Babbling of Love ! 
 My beautiful, Divine Eumenides ! 
 My gentle Dove!" 
 
 "Kindling the high-uplifted stars at even 
 
 With thy sweet song, 
 The Angels, on the sapphire sills of Heaven, 
 
 In rapturous throng 
 
 Melded to milder meekness with the Seven 
 Bright lamps of God to glory given, 
 Leant down to hear thy voice roll up the leven, 
 Where thou art lying 
 Beside the beautiful undying, 
 In the valley of the passing of the Moon, 
 Oh, Avalon ! my son ! my son !" 
 
 That Chivers could write clear, strong, nobly 
 imaginative verse, is evident from the following 
 lines of a poem on the death of Poe : 
 
 "Like the great prophet in the desert lone, 
 He stood here waiting for the golden morning ; 
 From Death s dark vale I hear his distant moan, 
 Coming to scourge the world he was adorning _ 
 Scorning, in glory now, their impotence of scorning. 
 
188 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 "And now in apotheosis divine, 
 He stands enthroned upon the immortal mountains 
 Of God s eternity, forevermore to shine 
 Star-crowned, all purified with oil-anointings 
 Drinking with Ulalume from out the eternal fountains." 
 
 In Mr. Benton s very interesting- little book 
 the so-called "Poe-Chivers controversy" is fully 
 entered into ; a brief summary of the details will 
 suffice here. The charge of alleged borrowing 
 by Poe from the poetry of Chivers, was 
 made by Chivers himself. The "Raven" and 
 "Annabel Lee" were cited in proof of their 
 assertion. Friends of Chivers repeated the 
 charge, and the defenders of Poe vigorously 
 denied it, claiming that the charge was absurd. 
 The controversy was bitterly waged by both 
 sides, and column upon column was devoted to 
 the contest in magazines and newspapers. Poe 
 and Chivers corresponded with each other; 
 among the letters to Chivers, now in possession 
 of Mr. Adams, there is one from Poe, detailing 
 some of his many troubles, and mentioning the 
 Stylus the magazine which he proposed to 
 start. In this letter Poe says: "Please lend 
 me fifty dollars for three months. I am so poor 
 and friendless, I am half distracted ; but I shall 
 be all right when you and I start our magazine." 
 
 Poe gave high praise in the Broadway 
 Journal to Chivers s volume "The Lost 
 Pleiad and Other Poems," published in 1845. 
 Chivers s "Ellen ^Eyre" was published at Phil 
 adelphia in 1836. 
 
Thomas Holley Chivers 189 
 
 Olivers and his champions affirmed that 
 passages in verse and prose, quoted by them as 
 examples, were written by Chivers "long 
 anterior" to the parallel passages in Poe s 
 writings. A friend on the Poe side states that 
 Poe said, in speaking of the "Raven," "I pre 
 tended to no originality in either the rhythm or 
 meter" ; yet to his friend, William Ross Wallace, 
 Poe said, alluding to the "Raven," "I have 
 just written the greatest poem that ever was 
 written." 
 
 Mr. Benton sums up the "Poe-Chivers con 
 troversy" in the following manner : 
 
 "What conclusion must be drawn from the 
 facts ? Each reader will be certain to make his 
 own. No critic will doubt that to Poe belonged 
 the wonderful magic and mastery of this species 
 of song. If to him who says a thing best the 
 thing belongs, no one will hesitate to decide 
 that Poe is entitled to the bays which crown 
 him. It is a fact that, with all the contemporary 
 airing of the subject it is Poe s celebrity and 
 not Chivers s that remains. The finer instinct 
 and touch are what the world takes account of. 
 Chivers, except at rare intervals, did not 
 approach near enough to the true altitude. He 
 put no boundary between what was grotesque 
 and what was inspired. He was too short- 
 breathed to stay poised on the heights, and was 
 but accidentally poetic. But we may accord 
 him a single leaf of laurel, if no more, for what 
 
190 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 he came so near achieving in the musical lyric 
 of "Lily Adair." Truly enough Shakespeare 
 says : 
 
 " The lunatic, the lover, and the poet 
 Are of imagination all compact. 
 
 Their mental and spiritual territories inter- 
 blend. The same frenzy is the endowment of 
 each as charcoal is in essence the diamond. 
 As you differentiate and develop it, you make 
 your titular distinction and place. But it is not 
 a small thing to have been mingled in some 
 slight association with genius, and to have some 
 credit you with it. In an oriental poem the clay 
 pipe speaks of its contentment, since it cannot 
 be a rose, of having, by a fortunate association, 
 attained to some of the vase s fragrance." 
 
 o 
 
 Speaking of Olivers, Mr. Benton says : 
 "The pathetic conclusion of the whole matter 
 of his life and work is embodied in the one 
 word almost. He did not quite touch the 
 high and ambitious empyrean at which he 
 aimed. There were great visions before him, 
 but he could not put them into perfectly clarified 
 expression. At times he nearly found the 
 vehicle of words that uplifts, but some lack of 
 needed impulse or finish, some want of sur 
 rounding atmosphere, or some other partial 
 defect, tells the story of defeat. But there is 
 room enough for a hospitable memory of him, 
 and reason enough to honor his daring. We 
 
Thomas Holley Chivers 191 
 
 may put him, at least, in the Poe rubric, and 
 recall, in exalting Poe, a few of the typical- 
 attributes which gave Chivers his place in 
 poetry." 
 
 Recently this prolific subject has had another 
 interesting revival, through the new and elab 
 orate edition of Poe s works, edited by Pro 
 fessor Harrison of Virginia, in which nearly all 
 of the letters that passed between Chivers and 
 Poe are published. In an appendix Professor 
 Harrison discusses the "Poe-Cliivers contro 
 versy" and asserts that the Georgia poet s claims 
 are not tenable, and that, in fact, Poe was the 
 precursor of Chivers. This latest renaissance 
 is again supplemented by the publication in the 
 Century Magazine for January and February, 
 1903, of the Poe-Chivers papers, edited by Pro 
 fessor George E. Woodberry, and introduced as 
 being "the first authentic account of one of 
 Poe s most interesting friendships." 
 
 Surely, with these publications, presenting 
 data so full and minute, we may safely conclude 
 that this subject is now closed, finally, all the 
 evidence being in, and the verdict left to the 
 judgment of the public. Professor Wood- 
 berry s editing is interspersed with bright and 
 appropriate remarks and critical comments on 
 the matter, quality, and style of Chivers s 
 poetry, with characteristic quotations, and one 
 poem, "The Lady Alice," is given in full. 
 
192 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 Speaking of the alleged indebtedness of Poe, in 
 his "Raven," to the Georgia poet, Professor 
 Woodberry says : 
 
 "It is not too much to grant that in the many 
 atmospheric influences that surrounded the 
 germination of the Raven (and their number 
 was a multitude), these two poems (Chivers s 
 To Allegra Florence in Heaven and Urano- 
 then ) familiar to Poe, and certainly TJrano- 
 then, had a place. The two poets were extra 
 ordinarily sympathetic, but what was intense 
 and firm in Poe, was diffused and liquescent in 
 Chivers, who was, in truth, a kind of double to 
 him in what seems sometimes a spiritualistic, 
 sometimes a grotesque way. He was indeed to 
 Poe not unlike what Alcott was to Emerson, 
 and the comparison helps to clarify the confu 
 sion of their mutual relations, while it maintains 
 Poe s mastery unimpaired." 
 
 Professor Woodberry closes his article and 
 his appreciation of Chivers with these words : 
 
 "Apart from Poe, Chivers was an interesting 
 illustration of his times ; the vast, unfathomable 
 ocean of American crudity was in Chivers, 
 Alcott, Whitman, Mark Twain these four. 
 He was, without regard to his poetry, a most 
 estimable man in his intellectual sympathy, his 
 ideals and labors, and kindly and honorable in 
 all his relations with his fellows." 
 
Thomas Holley Chivers 193 
 
 Professor Woodberry s allusion to "the vast, 
 unfathomable ocean of American crudity" in 
 Chivers, is peculiar does he mean that this 
 "crudity" is to be found in Chivers, Alcott, 
 Whitman and Mark Twain, or are we to under 
 stand that Chivers was a compound of Alcott, 
 Whitman and Mark Twain ? 
 
3). 35. fields, JVL 
 
 POE AND SOME OF HIS CRITICS 
 
 No poet of great distinction certainly none 
 in America has been more persistently, and 
 frequently fiercely, criticised, both for his life 
 as a man, and in regard to the quality and value 
 of his poetry, than Edgar Allan Poe. As to 
 the former Poe s moral transgressions and 
 defects of character, a word or two, here, will 
 sufHce. The mentors have fully done their 
 duty, long ago, in pointing out his grievous 
 sins, and in drawing the appropriate and 
 obvious moral, deducible from such a deplorable 
 life as his was. Without doubt Poe sinned 
 grievously, but also, most grievously did he 
 suffer for his sin; but quite as deplorable and 
 obnoxious must be held the fact that some of his 
 most distinguished critics were not satisfied 
 with honest condemnation, but permitted 
 uncharitableness and even downright malice to 
 pervert and poison their spoken and printed 
 judgments. So virulent, at one time, was this 
 attack upon the dead poet, that, in one specially 
 scurrilous case, it caused a European writer to 
 ask whether there was no law in America "to 
 keep curs out of the cemeteries." Let us rather 
 say, with our Halleck, in his poem on Burns : 
 
FACING PAGE 194 
 
Poe and Some of His Critics 195 
 
 "A nation s glory be the rest 
 
 Forgot she s canonized his mind; 
 And it is joy to speak the best 
 We may of humankind." 
 
 But in regard to the quality and value of 
 Poe s poetry, there is always ground for legiti 
 mate and candid expressions of opinion. Such 
 criticism is always in order, and worthy of 
 respectful consideration. To one of these 
 critics of Poe s poetry, I wish to devote brief 
 attention, because he expresses a view of it 
 which I know to be shared by some other recent 
 reviewers of Poe s poetic work. 
 
 Toe s gift," says this writer, "flourished 
 upon him like a destructive flame, and the ashes 
 that it left are like the deadly poison which 
 some one has learned to powder out of a plant- 
 root. As a mere potency, dissociated from 
 qualities of beauty or truth, Poe must be rated 
 almost highest among American poets, and high 
 among prosaists; no one else offers so much 
 pungency, such impetuous and frightful energy, 
 crowded in such small space. 
 
 "We owe to Poe the first agile and deter 
 mined movement of criticism in this country, 
 and, though it was a startling- dexterity, with but 
 little depth, which winged his censorial shafts, 
 he was excellently fitted for the critic s office 
 in one way, because he knew positively what 
 standards he meant to judge by, and kept up 
 an inflexible hostility to any offense against 
 them. He had an acute instinct in matters of 
 
196 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 literary form ; it amounted, indeed, to a passion, 
 as all his instincts and perceptions did ; he had 
 also the knack of finding reasons, good or bad, 
 for his opinions, and of stating them well. 
 
 "Whatever the cause, his brain had a rift of 
 ruin in it at the start. For him there was 
 always a. demon in the sky ; and, though he 
 kept a delicate touch, that stole a new grace 
 from classic antiquity, it was the frangibility, 
 the quick decay, the fall of beautiful things that 
 excited him." 
 
 On the surface this criticism appears to be 
 blandly conservative and plausible, but when 
 carefully analyzed it will be found to have the 
 same fault which this critic charges against 
 Poe s method of criticism it has but little 
 depth. For instance, I cannot see any force in 
 the distinction this critic makes between Poe s 
 potency and his poetry. He says he would rate 
 him almost highest among American poets 
 merely as a "potency," and dissociated from 
 qualities of beauty or truth, whereas, as a matter 
 of common sense it follows, that to dissociate 
 Poe from the qualities of beauty or truth, which 
 characterize his poetry, is to deprive him of his 
 potency altogether, and make him as flabby as 
 a jelly-fish. I know of no other potency in 
 Poe except that which is derived from the 
 charmful beauty, the fine inspiration of his 
 poetry; and if, as his critic maintains, Poe s 
 potency entitles him to be rated "almost highest 
 
Poe and Some of His Critics 197 
 
 among American poets," it is simply because 
 his potency and his poetry are synonymous. 
 
 To me the most remarkable element of Poe s 
 poetry seems to be the poet s almost idolatrous 
 worship of Beauty of Beauty manifesting 
 itself not only in exquisite material forms, but 
 also in intangible, supernatural and spiritual 
 revelations. In this, in my opinion, lies his 
 finest, his most subtle strength; in this, and 
 through this, he exercises his utmost potency. 
 
 To Poe, Beauty was Truth. To him noth 
 ing was essentially true which, in form and 
 spirit, did not reach the standard of his ideal 
 conception of the Beautiful. 
 
 The durability of his fame as an artist in 
 poetry, the cause of that unique excellence, the 
 spirit of originality which breathes from his 
 writings are largely due, I think, to Poe s mar 
 velous idiosyncrasy concerning Beauty, and his 
 peculiar belief in Truth as the essence of Beauty. 
 Poe himself has asserted his profound reverence 
 for the True, and he insists that it is the office 
 of Taste to inform us of the Beautiful, that we 
 may wage war against Vice on the ground of 
 her deformity, her opposition to that which is 
 harmonious, in a word, to Beauty. In his 
 famous essay on "The Poetic Principle," Poe 
 says: 
 
 "He who shall simply sing, with however 
 glowing enthusiasm, or without however vivid 
 a truth of description of the sights, and sounds, 
 
198 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 and odors, and colors, and sentiments, which 
 greet him in common with all mankind he, I 
 say, has failed to prove his divine title. There 
 is still a something in the distance which he has 
 been unable to attain. We have still a thirst 
 unquenchable, to allay which he has not shown 
 us the crystal springs. This thirst belongs to 
 the immortality of Man. It is at once a conse 
 quence and an indication of his perennial exist 
 ence. It is the desire of the moth for the star. 
 It is no more appreciation of the Beauty before 
 us but a wild effort to reach the Beauty above. 
 
 "Inspired by an ecstatic prescience of the 
 glories beyond the grave, we struggle by multi 
 form combinations among the things and 
 thoughts of Time, to attain a portion of that 
 Loveliness, whose very elements, perhaps, 
 appertain to eternity alone. And thus, when 
 by Poetry, or when by Music the most entran 
 cing of the poetic moods we find ourselves 
 melted into tears we weep then, not as the 
 Abbot Gravina supposes, through excess of 
 pleasure, but through a certain petulant, im 
 patient sorrow at our inability to grasp now, 
 wholly, here on earth, at once and forever, those 
 divine and rapturous joys, of which through 
 the poem, or through the music, we attain to 
 but brief and indeterminate glimpses. 
 
 "The struggle to apprehend the supernal 
 Loveliness this struggle, on the part of souls 
 fittingly constituted has given to the world 
 
Poe and Some of His Critics 199 
 
 all that which it (the world) has ever been 
 enabled at once to understand and to feel as 
 poetic." 
 
 And in another place he defines the poetry of 
 words as the "rhythmical creation of Beauty." 
 
 To this ideal of his Poe adhered loyally, and 
 the quickening spirit of it is felt, in its fullest 
 power, in his splendid, soul-haunting Raven, 
 and in others of his best poems. The idea of 
 dissociating this worship of esthetic Beauty, 
 this adoration of the holiness of Beauty and of 
 the truth of Beauty, from the poetic potency 
 of Poe, seems to my mind a preposterous 
 proposition. 
 
 That Poe s gift "flourished upon him like a 
 destructive flame," is, unfortunately, as true of 
 him as it is and has been true of many who 
 possess the fatal gift of genius, and who, for 
 various reasons, and through the power of evil 
 influences, do not rule their spirits wisely and 
 well. It is one of the deplorable aspects of 
 genius, and the history of the world is full of 
 instances of its misconduct and moral aberra 
 tions. But in Poe s case, I deny that "the ashes 
 it left are like a deadly poison." If the works 
 left by Poe are ashes, they are ashes of glory, 
 and the spark of genius still lives, and will for 
 ever live, in them. His gift harmed no one but 
 himself ; nor has he left us a line which any one 
 can, consistently and honestly, declare contains 
 a deadly poison. I feel sure that, for all time, 
 
200 Representative Southern Poets 
 
 Poe will rank among the eminent poets of the 
 nineteenth century, and as the most original, 
 entrancingly lyrical of American poets. 
 
 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 We will not wound his spirit, by reciting 
 The sins and errors of his earthly ways, 
 
 Whose Upas shadows still his name are blighting, 
 Nor stain with Slander s spume his poet-bays ; 
 
 "No further seek his merits to disclose, 
 
 Nor draw his frailties from their dread abode, 
 (There they alike in trembling hope repose) 
 The bosom of his Father and his God." 
 
 Let Pharisees the "unco guid" and pious, 
 
 Hurl harsh anathemas upon his head, 
 And ghoulish critics, kin to Ananias, 
 
 Revile the memory of the laureled dead ; 
 
 A nobler task be ours ; a theme more pleasing, 
 With gentler feelings shall our hearts inspire ; 
 
 Let us from Discord s bonds our minds releasing, 
 Feel but the thraldom of his magic lyre. 
 
 From shadowy shores of Pluto s realm infernal, 
 The Raven comes and croaks his "nevermore"! 
 
 And robed in light and loveliness supernal, 
 
 The Shade appears, whom angels name "Lenore." 
 
 For us, again the poet s fancy peoples 
 With phantom forms, the horror-haunted dells, 
 
 Or bids the spirits dwelling in the steeples, 
 Pour golden floods of music from the bells. 
 
 With him we roam, in mood sedate and sober, 
 The woods, beneath October s skies of gloom, 
 
 And at a tomb, "by the dark tarn of Auber," 
 Hear Psyche read the legend, "Ulalume." 
 
Poe and Some of His Critics 201 
 
 Once more we see the lurid splendors, gleaming 
 From the "strange city" which Death s own shall be ; 
 
 Lie in the grave with him, of "Annie" dreaming, 
 Or her who sleepeth "by the sounding sea." 
 
 Thus moved, and guided by this mighty master, 
 Our souls enthralled by his resistless will, 
 
 Through scenes of mystic glory or disaster, 
 We mount with him the Muses sacred hill, 
 
 Where what was godlike in him, and which never 
 Can be denied him now, nor soiled with shame 
 
 His glorious genius has been shrined forever, 
 In the white temple of eternal fame. 
 
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