The Poems of Henry Timrod

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Title: Poems of Henry Timrod

Author: Henry Timrod

Release Date: July 26, 2008 [EBook #845]

Last Updated: February 7, 2013

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS OF HENRY TIMROD ***

Produced by Alan Light, and David Widger

POEMS OF HENRY TIMROD

With Memoir

Contents

Introduction

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

    "The poet to the whole wide world belongs,

    Even as the Teacher is the child's."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

        To Time, the Old Traveler

    They slander thee, Old Traveler,

     Who say that thy delight

    Is to scatter ruin, far and wide,

     In thy wantonness of might:

    For not a leaf that falleth

     Before thy restless wings,

    But in thy flight, thou changest it

     To a thousand brighter things.

    Thou passest o'er the battlefield

     Where the dead lie stiff and stark,

    Where naught is heard save the vulture's scream,

     And the gaunt wolf's famished bark;

    But thou hast caused the grain to spring

     From the blood-enrichèd clay,

    And the waving corn-tops seem to dance

     To the rustic's merry lay.

    Thou hast strewed the lordly palace

     In ruins on the ground,

    And the dismal screech of the owl is heard

     Where the harp was wont to sound;

    But the selfsame spot thou coverest

     With the dwellings of the poor,

    And a thousand happy hearts enjoy

     What ONE usurped before.

    'T is true thy progress layeth

     Full many a loved one low,

    And for the brave and beautiful

     Thou hast caused our tears to flow;

    But always near the couch of death

     Nor thou, nor we can stay;

AND THE BREATH OF THY DEPARTING WINGS,

     DRIES ALL OUR TEARS AWAY!

        The Mocking-Bird

                                  Nor did lack

    Sweet music to the magic of the scene:

    The little crimson-breasted Nonpareil

    Was there, his tiny feet scarce bending down

    The silken tendril that he lighted on

    To pour his love notes; and in russet coat,

    Most homely, like true genius bursting forth

    In spite of adverse fortune, a full choir

    Within himself, the merry Mock Bird sate,

    Filling the air with melody; and at times,

IN THE RAPT FAVOR OF HIS SWEETEST SONG,

    HIS QUIVERING FORM WOULD SPRING INTO THE SKY,

    IN SPIRAL CIRCLES, AS IF HE WOULD CATCH

    NEW POWERS FROM KINDRED WARBLERS IN THE CLOUDS

    WHO WOULD BEND DOWN TO GREET HIM!

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

        To Harry

    Harry, my little blue-eyed boy,

     I love to have thee playing near;

    There's music in thy shouts of joy

     To a fond father's ear.

    I love to see the lines of mirth

     Mantle thy cheek and forehead fair,

    As if all pleasures of the earth

     Had met to revel there;

    For gazing on thee, do I sigh

     That those most happy years must flee,

    And thy full share of misery

     Must fall in life on thee!

    There is no lasting grief below,

     My Harry! that flows not from guilt;

    Thou canst not read my meaning now—

     In after times thou wilt.

    Thou'lt read it when the churchyard clay

     Shall lie upon thy father's breast,

    And he, though dead, will point the way

     Thou shalt be always blest.

    They'll tell thee this terrestrial ball,

     To man for his enjoyment given,

    Is but a state of sinful thrall

     To keep the soul from heaven.

    My boy! the verdure-crownèd hills,

     The vales where flowers innumerous blow,

    The music of ten thousand rills

     Will tell thee, 't is not so.

    God is no tyrant who would spread

     Unnumbered dainties to the eyes,

    Yet teach the hungering child to dread

     That touching them he dies!

    No! all can do his creatures good,

     He scatters round with hand profuse—

    The only precept understood,

ENJOY, BUT NOT ABUSE!

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

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

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

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

But he had other teachers.