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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/7274-8.txt b/7274-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..aa44377 --- /dev/null +++ b/7274-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6887 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Poets of the South, by F.V.N. Painter + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Poets of the South + +Author: F.V.N. Painter + +Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7274] +[This file was first posted on April 5, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO Latin-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, POETS OF THE SOUTH *** + + + + +Tiffany Vergon, Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + + + +POETS OF THE SOUTH + +A SERIES OF BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL STUDIES +WITH TYPICAL POEMS, ANNOTATED + +BY + +F.V.N. PAINTER, A.M., D.D. + +_Professor of Modern Languages in Roanoke College + +Author of "A History of Education" "History of English Literature," +"Introduction to American Literature" etc._ + + + + +PREFACE + + +The poets of the South, who constitute a worthy galaxy of poetic talent +and achievement, are not sufficiently known. Even in the South, which +might naturally be expected to take pride in its gifted singers, most of +them, it is to be feared, are but little read. + +This has been called an age of prose. Under the sway of what are regarded +as "practical interests," there is a drifting away from poetic sentiment +and poetic truth. This tendency is to be regretted, for material +prosperity is never at its best without the grace and refinements of true +culture. At the present time, as in former ages, the gifted poet is a +seer, who reveals to us what is highest and best in life. + +There is at present a new interest in literature in the South. The people +read more; and in recent years an encouraging number of Southern writers +have achieved national distinction. With this literary renaissance, there +has been a turning back to older authors. + +It is hoped that this little volume will supply a real need. It is +intended to call fresh attention to the poetic achievement of the South. +While minor poets are not forgotten, among whose writings is found many a +gem of poetry, it is the leaders of the chorus--Poe, Hayne, Timrod, +Lanier, and Ryan--who receive chief consideration. It may be doubted +whether several of them have been given the place in American letters to +which their gifts and achievements justly entitle them. It is hoped that +the following biographical and critical sketches of these men, each +highly gifted in his own way, will lead to a more careful reading of +their works, in which, be it said to their honor, there is no thought or +sentiment unworthy of a refined and chivalrous nature. + +F. V. N. PAINTER. + +SALEM, VIRGINIA. + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER + +I. MINOR POETS OF THE SOUTH + +II. EDGAR ALLAN POE + +III. PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE + +IV. HENRY TIMROD + +V. SIDNEY LANIER + +VI. ABRAM J. RYAN + +ILLUSTRATIVE SELECTIONS + +NOTES + + + * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER I + +MINOR POETS OF THE SOUTH + + +The first poetic writer of this country had his home at Jamestown. He was +GEORGE SANDYS who came to Virginia in 1621, and succeeded his brother as +treasurer of the newly established colony. Amid the hardships of pioneer +colonial life, in which he proved himself a leading spirit, he had the +literary zeal to complete his translation of Ovid's _Metamorphoses_, +which he had begun in England. After the toilsome day, spent in +introducing iron works or in encouraging shipbuilding, he sat down at +night, within the shadow of surrounding forests, to construct his +careful, rhymed pentameters. The conditions under which he wrote were +very far removed from the Golden Age which he described,-- + + "Which uncompelled + And without rule, in faith and truth, excelled." + +The promise of this bright, heroic beginning in poetry was not realized; +and scarcely another voice was heard in verse in the South before the +Revolution. The type of civilization developed in the South prior to the +Civil War, admirable as it was in many other particulars, was hardly +favorable to literature. The energies of the most intelligent portion of +the population were directed to agriculture or to politics; and many of +the foremost statesmen of our country--men like Washington, Jefferson, +Marshall, Calhoun, Benton--were from the Southern states. The system of +slavery, while building up baronial homes of wealth, culture, and +boundless hospitality, checked manufacture, retarded the growth of +cities, and turned the tide of immigration westward. Without a vigorous +public school system, a considerable part of the non-slaveholding class +remained without literary taste or culture. + +The South has been chiefly an agricultural region, and has adhered to +conservative habits of thought. While various movements in theology, +philosophy, and literature were stirring New England, the South pursued +the even tenor of its way. Of all parts of our country, it has been most +tenacious of old customs and beliefs. Before the Civil War the cultivated +classes of the Southern states found their intellectual nourishment in +the older English classics, and Pope, Addison, and Shakespeare formed a +part of every gentleman's library. There were no great publishing houses +to stimulate literary production; and to this day Southern writers are +dependent chiefly on Northern publishers to give their works to the +public. Literature was hardly taken seriously; it was rather regarded, to +use the words of Paul Hamilton Hayne, "as the choice recreation of +gentlemen, as something fair and good, to be courted in a dainty, amateur +fashion, and illustrated by _apropos_ quotations from Lucretius, Virgil, +or Horace." Thus it happened that before the Civil War literature +in the South, whether prose or poetry, had a less vigorous development +than in the Middle States and New England. + +Yet it has been common to undervalue the literary work of the South. +While literature was not generally encouraged there before the Civil +War,--a fact lamented by gifted, representative writers,--there were at +least two literary centers that exerted a notable influence. The first +was Richmond, the home of Poe during his earlier years, and of the +_Southern Literary Messenger_, in its day the most influential magazine +south of the Potomac. It was founded, as set forth in its first issue, +in 1834, to encourage literature in Virginia and the other states +of the South; and during its career of twenty-eight years it stimulated +literary activity in a remarkable degree. Among its contributors we find +Poe, Simms, Hayne, Timrod, John Esten Cooke, John R. Thompson, and +others--a galaxy of the best-known names in Southern literature. + +The other principal literary center of the South was Charleston. +"Legaré's wit and scholarship," to adopt the words of Mrs. Margaret J. +Preston, "brightened its social circle; Calhoun's deep shadow loomed over +it from his plantation at Fort Hill; Gilmore Simms's genial culture +broadened its sympathies. The latter was the Maecenas to a band of +brilliant youths who used to meet for literary suppers at his beautiful +home." Among these brilliant youths were Paul Hamilton Hayne and Henry +Timrod, two of the best poets the South has produced. The _Southern +Literary Gazette_, founded by Simms, and _Russell's Magazine_, edited +by Hayne, were published at Charleston. Louisville and New Orleans +were likewise literary centers of more or less influence. + +Yet it is a notable fact that none of these literary centers gave rise to +a distinctive group or school of writers. The influence of these centers +did not consist in one great dominating principle, but in a general +stimulus to literary effort. In this respect it may be fairly claimed +that the South was more cosmopolitan than the North. In New England, +theology and transcendentalism in turn dominated literature; and not a +few of the group of writers who contributed to the Atlantic Monthly were +profoundly influenced by the anti-slavery agitation. They struggled up +Parnassus, to use the words of Lowell,-- + + "With a whole bale of _isms_ tied together with rime." + +But the leading writers of the South, as will be seen later, have been +exempt, in large measure, from the narrowing influence of one-sided +theological or philosophical tenets. They have not aspired to the rôle of +social reformers; and in their loyalty to art, they have abstained from +fanatical energy and extravagance. + +The major poets of the South stand out in strong, isolated individuality. +They were not bound together by any sympathy other than that of a common +interest in art and in their Southern home. Their genius was nourished on +the choicest literary productions of England and of classic antiquity; +and looking, with this Old World culture, upon Southern landscape and +Southern character, they pictured or interpreted them in the language of +poetry. + +The three leading poets of the Civil War period--Hayne, Timrod, and Ryan +--keenly felt the issues involved in that great struggle. All three of +them were connected, for a time at least, with the Confederate army. In +the earlier stages of the conflict, the intensity of their Southern +feeling flamed out in thrilling lyrics. Timrod's martial songs throb with +the energy of deep emotion. But all three poets lived to accept the +results of the war, and to sing a new loyalty to our great Republic. + +The South has not been as unfruitful in literature as is often supposed. +While there have been very few to make literature a vocation, a +surprisingly large number have made it an avocation. Law and literature, +as we shall have occasion to note, have frequently gone hand in hand. A +recent work on Southern literature [*] enumerates more than twelve +hundred writers, most of whom have published one or more volumes. +There are more than two hundred poets who have been thought worthy +of mention. More than fifty poets have been credited to Virginia alone; +and an examination of their works reveals, among a good deal that is +commonplace and imitative, many a little gem that ought to be preserved. +Apart from the five major poets of the South--Poe, Hayne, Timrod, Lanier, +and Ryan--who are reserved for special study, we shall now consider a few +of the minor poets who have produced verse of excellent quality. +[Footnote *: Manly's _Southern Literature._] + +FRANCIS SCOTT KEY (1780-1843) is known throughout the land as the author +of _The Star-spangled Banner_, the noblest, perhaps, of our patriotic +hymns. He was born in Frederick County, Maryland, and was educated +at St. John's College, Annapolis. He studied law, and after practicing +with success in Frederick City, he removed to Washington, where he became +district attorney. + +During the bombardment of Fort McHenry in the War of 1812, he was +detained on board a British vessel, whither he had gone to secure the +release of a friend. All night long he watched the bombardment with the +keenest anxiety. In the morning, when the dawn disclosed the star- +spangled banner still proudly waving over the fort, he conceived the +stirring song, which at once became popular and was sung all over the +country. Though a volume of his poems, with a sketch by Chief-Justice +Taney, was published in 1857, it is to _The Star-spangled Banner_ that +he owes his literary fame. + + "O say, can you see, by the dawn's early light, + What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming, + Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight + O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming? + + "And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, + Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. + O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave + O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?" + +Few poems written in the South have been more popular than _My Life is +like the Summer Rose_. It has the distinction of having been praised +by Byron. Its author, RICHARD HENRY WILDE (1789-1847), was born in +Dublin, Ireland, but brought up and educated in Augusta, Georgia. He +studied law, became attorney general of his adopted state, and later +entered Congress, where he served for several terms. He was a man of +scholarly tastes and poetic gifts. He spent five years abroad, chiefly in +Italy, where his studies in Italian literature afterwards led to a work +on Torquato Tasso. It was on the occasion of this trip abroad that he +wrote _A Farewell to America_, which breathes a noble spirit of +patriotism:-- + + "Farewell, my more than fatherland! + Home of my heart and friends, adieu! + Lingering beside some foreign strand, + How oft shall I remember you! + How often, o'er the waters blue, + Send back a sigh to those I leave, + The loving and beloved few, + Who grieve for me,--for whom I grieve!" + +On his return to America, he settled in New Orleans, where he became a +professor of law in the University of Louisiana. Though the author of a +volume of poems of more than usual excellence, it is the melancholy +lyric, _My Life is like the Summer Rose_, that, more than all the rest, +has given him a niche in the temple of literary fame. Is it necessary +to quote a stanza of a poem so well known? + + "My life is like the summer rose, + That opens to the morning sky, + But, ere the shades of evening close, + Is scattered on the ground--to die! + Yet on the rose's humble bed + The sweetest dews of night are shed, + As if she wept the waste to see-- + But none shall weep a tear for me!" + + +GEORGE D. PRENTICE (1802-1870) was a native of Connecticut. He was +educated at Brown University, and studied law; but he soon gave up his +profession for the more congenial pursuit of literature. In 1828 he +established at Hartford the _New England Weekly Review_, in which a +number of his poems, serious and sentimental, appeared. Two years later, +at the age of twenty-eight, he turned over his paper to Whittier and +removed to Louisville, where he became editor of the _Journal_. + +He was a man of brilliant intellect, and soon made his paper a power in +education, society, and politics. Apart from his own vigorous +contributions, he made his paper useful to Southern letters by +encouraging literary activity in others. It was chiefly through his +influence that Louisville became one of the literary centers of the +South. He was a stout opponent of secession; and when the Civil War came +his paper, like his adopted state, suffered severely. + +Among his writings is a _Life of Henry Clay_. A collection of his witty +and pungent paragraphs has also been published under the title of +_Prenticeana_. His poems, by which he will be longest remembered, were +collected after his death. His best-known poem is _The Closing Year_. +Though its vividness and eloquence are quite remarkable, its style +is, perhaps, too declamatory for the taste of the present generation. +The following lines, which express the poet's bright hopes for the +political future of the world, are taken from _The Flight of Years_:-- + + "Weep not, that Time + Is passing on--it will ere long reveal + A brighter era to the nations. Hark! + Along the vales and mountains of the earth + There is a deep, portentous murmuring + Like the swift rush of subterranean streams, + Or like the mingled sounds of earth and air, + When the fierce Tempest, with sonorous wing, + Heaves his deep folds upon the rushing winds, + And hurries onward with his night of clouds + Against the eternal mountains. 'Tis the voice + Of infant _Freedom_--and her stirring call + Is heard and answered in a thousand tones + From every hilltop of her western home---- + And lo--it breaks across old Ocean's flood---- + And _Freedom, Freedom!_ is the answering shout + Of nations starting from the spell of years. + The dayspring!--see--'tis brightening in the heavens! + The watchmen of the night have caught the sign---- + From tower to tower the signal fires flash free---- + And the deep watchword, like the rush of seas + That heralds the volcano's bursting flame, + Is sounding o'er the earth. Bright years of hope + And life are on the wing.--Yon glorious bow + Of Freedom, bended by the hand of God, + Is spanning Time's dark surges. Its high arch, + A type of love and mercy on the cloud, + Tells that the many storms of human life + Will pass in silence, and the sinking waves, + Gathering the forms of glory and of peace, + Reflect the undimmed brightness of the Heaven." + + +WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS (1806-1870), a native of Charleston, was a man of +remarkable versatility. He made up for his lack of collegiate training by +private study and wide experience. He early gave up law for literature, +and during his long and tireless literary career was editor, poet, +dramatist, historian, and novelist. He had something of the wideness of +range of Sir Walter Scott; and one can not but think that, had he lived +north of Mason and Dixon's line, he might occupy a more prominent place +in the literary annals of our country. He has been styled the "Cooper of +the South"; but it is hardly too much to say that in versatility, +culture, and literary productiveness he surpassed his great Northern +contemporary. + +Simms was a poet before he became a novelist. The poetic impulse +manifested itself early; and before he was twenty-five he had published +three or more volumes of verse. In 1832 his imaginative poem, +_Atalantis, a Story of the Sea_, was brought out by the Harpers; and +it introduced him at once to the favorable notice of what Poe called the +"Literati" of New York. His subsequent volumes of poetry were devoted +chiefly to a description of Southern scenes and incidents. + +As will be seen in our studies of Hayne and Timrod, Simms was an +important figure in the literary circles of Charleston. His large, +vigorous nature seemed incapable of jealousy, and he took delight in +lending encouragement to young men of literary taste and aspiration. He +was a laborious and prolific writer, the number of his various works-- +poetry, drama, history, fiction--reaching nearly a hundred. Had he +written less rapidly, his work might have gained, perhaps, in artistic +quality. + +Among the best of Simms's novels is a series devoted to the Revolution. +The characters and incidents of that conflict in South Carolina are +graphically portrayed. _The Partisan_, the first of this historic series, +was published in 1835. _The Yemassee_ is an Indian story, in which the +character of the red man is less idealized than in Cooper's _Leather- +stocking Tales_. In _The Damsel of Darien_, the hero is Balboa, the +discoverer of the Pacific. + +The verse of Simms is characterized by facile vigor rather than by fine +poetic quality. The following lines, which represent his style at its +best, bear a lesson for the American people to-day:-- + + "This the true sign of ruin to a race-- + It undertakes no march, and day by day + Drowses in camp, or, with the laggard's pace, + Walks sentry o'er possessions that decay; + Destined, with sensible waste, to fleet away;-- + For the first secret of continued power + Is the continued conquest;--all our sway + Hath surety in the uses of the hour; + If that we waste, in vain walled town and lofty tower!" + + +EDWARD COATE PINKNEY (1802-1828) died before his poetic gifts had reached +their full maturity. He was the son of the eminent lawyer and +diplomatist, William Pinkney, and was born in London, while his father +was American minister at the court of St. James. At the age of nine he +was brought home to America, and educated at Baltimore. He spent eight +years in the United States navy, during which period he visited the +classic shores of the Mediterranean. He was impressed particularly with +the beauty of Italy, and in one of his poems he says:-- + + "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." + +In 1824 he resigned his place in the navy to take up the practice of law +in Baltimore. His health was not good; and he seems to have occupied a +part of his abundant leisure (for he was not successful in his +profession) in writing poetry. A thin volume of poems was published in +1825, in which he displays, especially in his shorter pieces, an +excellent lyrical gift. The following stanzas are from _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 burdened bee + Forth issue from the rose." + + +PHILIP PENDLETON COOKE (1816-1850), like most Southern writers before the +Civil War, mingled literature with the practice of law. He was born at +Martinsburg, Virginia, and educated at Princeton. He early manifested a +literary bent, and wrote for the _Knickerbocker Magazine_, the oldest +of our literary monthlies, before he was out of his teens. He was +noted for his love of outdoor life, and became a thorough sportsman. In +1847 he published a volume entitled _Froissart Ballads and Other Poems_. +The origin of the ballad portion of the volume, as explained +in the preface, is found in the lines of an old Roman poet:-- + + "A certain freak has got into my head, + Which I can't conquer for the life of me, + Of taking up some history, little read, + Or known, and writing it in poetry." + +The best known of his lyrics is _Florence Vane_ which has the +sincerity and pathos of a real experience:-- + + "I loved thee long and dearly, + Florence Vane; + My life's bright dream, and early, + Hath come again; + I renew, in my fond vision, + My heart's dear pain, + My hope, and thy derision, + Florence Vane. + + "The ruin lone and hoary, + The ruin old, + Where thou didst hark my story, + At even told,-- + That spot--the hues Elysian + Of sky and plain-- + I treasure in my vision, + Florence Vane. + + "Thou wast lovelier than the roses + In their prime; + Thy voice excelled the closes + Of sweetest rhyme; + Thy heart was as a river + Without a main. + Would I had loved thee never, + Florence Vane!" + + +THEODORE O'HARA (1820-1867) is chiefly remembered for a single poem that +has touched the national heart. He was born in Danville, Kentucky. After +taking a course in law, he accepted a clerkship in the Treasury +Department at Washington. On the outbreak of the Mexican War he enlisted +as a private soldier, and by his gallant service rose to the rank of +captain and major. After the close of the war he returned to Washington +and engaged for a time in the practice of his profession. Later he became +editor of the _Mobile Register_, and _Frankfort Yeoman_ in Kentucky. In +the Civil War he served as colonel in the Confederate army. + +The poem on which his fame largely rests is _The Bivouac of the +Dead_. It was written to commemorate the Kentuckians who fell in the +battle of Buena Vista. Its well-known lines have furnished an apt +inscription for several military cemeteries:-- + + "The muffled drum's sad roll has beat + The soldier's last tattoo; + No more on Life's parade shall meet + That brave and fallen few. + + "On Fame's eternal camping-ground + Their silent tents are spread, + And Glory guards, with solemn round, + The bivouac of the dead." + +O'Hara died in Alabama in 1867. The legislature of Kentucky paid him a +fitting tribute in having his body removed to Frankfort and placed by the +side of the heroes whom he so worthily commemorated in his famous poem. + + +FRANCIS ORRERY TICKNOR (1822-1874) was a physician living near Columbus, +Georgia. He led a busy, useful, humble life, and his merits as a poet +have not been fully recognized. In the opinion of Paul Hamilton Hayne, +who edited a volume of Ticknor's poems, he was "one of the truest and +sweetest lyric poets this country has yet produced." _The Virginians of +the Valley_ was written after the soldiers of the Old Dominion, many +of whom bore the names of the knights of the "Golden Horseshoe," had +obtained a temporary advantage over the invading forces of the North:-- + + "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." + +But a martial lyric of greater force is _Little Giffen_, written in +honor of a blue-eyed lad of East Tennessee. He was terribly wounded in +some engagement, and after being taken to the hospital at Columbus, +Georgia, was finally nursed back to life in the home of Dr. Ticknor. +Beneath the thin, insignificant exterior of the lad, the poet discerned +the incarnate courage of the hero:-- + + "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!) + Specter! such as you seldom see, + Little Giffen of Tennessee! + + * * * * * + + "Word of gloom from the war, one day; + Johnson 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." + +But Ticknor did not confine himself to war themes. He was a lover of +Nature; and its forms, and colors, and sounds--as seen in _April +Morning_, _Twilight_, _The Hills_, _Among the Birds_--appealed +to his sensitive nature. Shut out from literary centers and +literary companionship, he sang, like Burns, from the strong impulse +awakened by the presence of the heroic and the beautiful. + + +JOHN R. THOMPSON (1823-1873) has deserved well of the South both as +editor and author. He was born in Richmond, and educated at the +University of Virginia, where he received the degree of Bachelor of Arts +in 1845. Two years later he became editor of the _Southern Literary +Messenger_; and during the twelve years of his editorial management, +he not only maintained a high degree of literary excellence, but took +pains to lend encouragement to Southern letters. It is a misfortune to +our literature that his writings, particularly his poetry, have never +been collected. + +The incidents of the Civil War called forth many a stirring lyric, the +best of which is his well-known _Music in Camp_:-- + + "Two armies covered hill and plain, + Where Rappahannock's waters + Ran deeply crimsoned with the stain + Of battle's recent slaughters." + +The band had played "Dixie" and "Yankee Doodle," which in turn had been +greeted with shouts by "Rebels" and "Yanks." + + "And yet once more the bugles sang + Above the stormy riot; + No shout upon the evening rang-- + There reigned a holy quiet. + + "The sad, slow stream its noiseless flood + Poured o'er the glistening pebbles; + All silent now the Yankees stood, + And silent stood the Rebels. + + "No unresponsive soul had heard + That plaintive note's appealing, + So deeply 'Home, Sweet Home' had stirred + The hidden founts of feeling. + + "Or Blue or Gray, the soldier sees, + As by the wand of fairy, + The cottage 'neath the live-oak trees, + The cabin by the prairie." + +On account of failing health, Thompson made a visit to Europe, where he +spent several years, contributing from time to time to _Blackwood's +Magazine_ and other English periodicals. On his return to America, he +was engaged on the editorial staff of the _New York Evening Post_, +with which he was connected till his death, in 1873. He is buried in +Hollywood cemetery at Richmond. + + "The city's hum drifts o'er his grave, + And green above the hollies wave + Their jagged leaves, as when a boy, + On blissful summer afternoons, + He came to sing the birds his runes, + And tell the river of his joy." + +The verse of Mrs. MARGARET J. PRESTON (1820-1897) rises above the +commonplace both in sentiment and craftsmanship. She belongs, as some +critic has said, to the school of Mrs. Browning; and in range of subject +and purity of sentiment she is scarcely inferior to her great English +contemporary. She was the daughter of the Rev. George Junkin, D.D., the +founder of Lafayette College, Pennsylvania, and for many years president +of Washington College at Lexington, Virginia. In 1857 she married Colonel +J. T. L. Preston of the Virginia Military Institute. + +For many years she was a contributor to the _Southern Literary +Messenger_, in which her earlier poems first made their appearance. +Though a native of Philadelphia, she was loyal to the South during the +Civil War, and found inspiration in its deeds of heroism. _Beechenbrook_ +is a rhyme of the war; and though well-nigh forgotten now, it +was read, on its publication in 1865, from the Potomac to the Gulf. Among +her other writings are _Old Songs and New_ and _Cartoons_. Her +poetry is pervaded by a deeply religious spirit, and she repeatedly urges +the lesson of supreme resignation and trust, as in the following lines:-- + + "What will it matter by-and-by + Whether my path below was bright, + Whether it wound through dark or light, + Under a gray or golden sky, + When I look back on it, by-and-by? + + "What will it matter by-and-by + Whether, unhelped, I toiled alone, + Dashing my foot against a stone, + Missing the charge of the angel nigh, + Bidding me think of the by-and-by? + + * * * * * + + "What will it matter? Naught, if I + Only am sure the way I've trod, + Gloomy or gladdened, leads to God, + Questioning not of the how, the why, + If I but reach Him by-and-by. + + "What will I care for the unshared sigh, + If in my fear of lapse or fall, + Close I have clung to Christ through all, + Mindless how rough the road might lie, + Sure He will smoothen it by-and-by. + + "What will it matter by-and-by? + _Nothing but this_: that Joy or Pain + Lifted me skyward,--helped me to gain, + Whether through rack, or smile, or sigh, + Heaven, home, all in all, by-and-by." + +In this rapid sketch of the minor singers of the South, it has been +necessary to omit many names worthy of mention. It is beyond our scope to +speak of the newer race of poets. Here and there delicate notes are +heard, but there is no evidence that a great singer is present among us. +Yet there is no ground for discouragement; the changed conditions and the +new spirit that has come upon our people may reasonably be expected to +lead to higher poetic achievement. + +In some respects the South affords a more promising field for literature +than any other part of our country. There is evident decadence in New +England. But the climate and scenery, the history and traditions, and the +chivalrous spirit and unexhausted intellectual energies of the South +contain the promise of an Augustan age in literature. In no insignificant +degree its rich-ored veins have been worked in prose. JOEL CHANDLER +HARRIS has successfully wrought in the mine of negro folk-lore; GEORGE W. +CABLE has portrayed the Creole life of Louisiana; CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK +has pictured the types of character found among the Tennessee mountains; +THOMAS NELSON PAGE has shown us the trials and triumphs of Reconstruction +days; and Miss MARY JOHNSTON has revived the picturesque scenes of +colonial times. There has been an obvious literary awakening in the +South; and sooner or later it will find utterance, let us hope, in some +strong-voiced, great-souled singer. + +It is true that there are obstacles to be overcome. There are no literary +magazines in the South to encourage and develop our native talent as in +the days of the _Southern Literary Messenger_. Southern writers are +still dependent upon Northern periodicals, in which they can hardly be +said to find a cordial welcome. It seems that the South in a measure +suffers the obloquy that rested of old upon Nazareth, from which the +Pharisees of the metropolis maintained that no good thing could come. + +But the most serious drawback of all is the disfavor into which poetry +has fallen, or rather which it has brought upon itself. In the remoteness +of its themes and sentiments, in its over-anxiety for a faultless or +striking technique, it has erected a barrier between itself and the +sanity of a practical, truth-loving people. Let us hope that this +aberration is not permanent. When poetry returns to simplicity, +sincerity, and truth; when it shall voice, as in the great English +singers, Tennyson and Browning, the deepest thought and aspirations of +our race; when once more, as in the prophetic days of old, it shall +resume its lofty, seer-like office,--then will it be restored to its +place of honor by a delighted and grateful people. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +EDGAR ALLAN POE + + +Poe occupies a peculiar place in American literature. He has been called +our most interesting literary man. He stands alone for his intellectual +brilliancy and his lamentable failure to use it wisely. No one can read +his works intelligently without being impressed with his extraordinary +ability. Whether poetry, criticism, or fiction, he shows extraordinary +power in them all. But the moral element in life is the most important, +and in this Poe was lacking. With him truth was not the first necessity. +He allowed his judgment to be warped by friendship, and apparently +sacrificed sincerity to the vulgar desire of gaining popular applause. +Through intemperate habits, he was unable for any considerable length of +time to maintain himself in a responsible or lucrative position. Fortune +repeatedly opened to him an inviting door; but he constantly and +ruthlessly abused her kindness. + +Edgar Allan Poe descended from an honorable ancestry. His grandfather, +David Poe, was a Revolutionary hero, over whose grave, as he kissed the +sod, Lafayette pronounced the words, "_Ici repose un coeur noble_." +His father, an impulsive and wayward youth, fell in love with an English +actress, and forsook the bar for the stage. The couple were duly married, +and acted with moderate success in the principal towns and cities of the +country. It was during an engagement at Boston that the future poet was +born, January 19, 1809. Two years later the wandering pair were again in +Richmond, where within a few weeks of each other they died in poverty. +They left three children, the second of whom, Edgar, was kindly received +into the home of Mr. John Allan, a wealthy merchant of the city. + +[Illustration: EDGAR ALLAN POE.] + +The early training of Poe was misguided and unfortunate. The boy was +remarkably pretty and precocious, and his foster-parents allowed no +opportunity to pass without showing him off. After dinner in this elegant +and hospitable home, he was frequently placed upon the table to drink to +the health of the guests, and to deliver short declamations, for which he +had inherited a decided talent. He was flattered and fondled and indulged +in every way. Is it strange that under this training he acquired a taste +for strong drink, and became opinionated and perverse? + +In 1815 Mr. Allan went to England with his family to spend several years, +and there placed the young Edgar at school in an ancient and historic +town, which has since been swallowed up in the overflow of the great +metropolis. The venerable appearance and associations of the town, as may +be learned from the autobiographic tale of _William Wilson_, made a +deep and lasting impression on the imaginative boy. + +After five years spent in this English school, where he learned to read +Latin and to speak French, he was brought back to America, and placed in +a Richmond academy. Without much diligence in study, his brilliancy +enabled him to take high rank in his classes. His skill in verse-making +and in debate made him prominent in the school. He excelled in athletic +exercises, but was not generally popular among his fellow-students. +Conscious of his superior intellectual endowments, he was disposed to +live apart and indulge in moody reverie. According to the testimony of +one who knew him well at this time, he was "self-willed, capricious, +inclined to be imperious, and though of generous impulses, not steadily +kind, or even amiable." + +In 1826, at the age of seventeen, Poe matriculated at the University of +Virginia, and entered the schools of ancient and modern languages. Though +he attended his classes with a fair degree of regularity, he was not slow +in joining the fast set. Gambling seems to have become a passion with +him, and he lost heavily. His reckless expenditures led Mr. Allan to +visit Charlottesville for the purpose of inquiring into his habits. The +result appears not to have been satisfactory; and though his adopted son +won high honors in Latin and French, Mr. Allan refused to allow him to +return to the university after the close of his first session, and placed +him in his own counting-room. + +It is not difficult to foresee the next step in the drama before us. Many +a genius of far greater self-restraint and moral earnestness has found +the routine of business almost intolerably irksome. With high notions of +his own ability, and with a temper rebellious to all restraint, Poe soon +broke away from his new duties, and started out to seek his fortune. He +went to Boston; and, in eager search for fame and money, he resorted to +the rather unpromising expedient of publishing, in 1827, a small volume +of poems. Viewed in the light of his subsequent career, the volume gives +here and there an intimation of the author's genius; but, as was to be +expected, it attracted but little attention. He was soon reduced to +financial straits, and in his pressing need he enlisted, under an assumed +name, in the United States army. He served at Fort Moultrie, and +afterward at Fortress Monroe. He rose to the rank of sergeant major; and, +according to the testimony of his superiors, he was "exemplary in his +deportment, prompt and faithful in the discharge of his duties." + +In 1829, when his heart was softened by the death of his wife, Mr. Allan +became reconciled to his adopted but wayward son. Through his influence, +young Poe secured a discharge from the army, and obtained an appointment +as cadet at West Point. He entered the military academy July 1, 1830, +and, as usual, established a reputation for brilliancy and folly. He was +reserved, exclusive, discontented, and censorious. As described by a +classmate, "He was an accomplished French scholar, and had a wonderful +aptitude for mathematics, so that he had no difficulty in preparing his +recitations in his class, and in obtaining the highest marks in these +departments. He was a devourer of books; but his great fault was his +neglect of and apparent contempt for military duties. His wayward and +capricious temper made him at times utterly oblivious or indifferent to +the ordinary routine of roll call, drills, and guard duties. These habits +subjected him often to arrest and punishment, and effectually prevented +his learning or discharging the duties of a soldier." The final result +may be easily anticipated: at the end of six months, he was summoned +before a court-martial, tried, and expelled. + +Before leaving West Point, Poe arranged for the publication of a volume +of poetry, which appeared in New York in 1831. This volume, to which the +students of the academy subscribed liberally in advance, is noteworthy in +several particulars. In a prefatory letter Poe lays down the poetic +principle to which he endeavored to conform his productions. It throws +much light on his poetry by exhibiting the ideal at which he aimed. "A +poem, in my opinion," he says, "is opposed to a work of science by having +for its _immediate_ object pleasure, not truth; to romance, by +having for its object an _indefinite_ instead of a definite +pleasure, being a poem only so far as this object is attained; romance +presenting perceptible images with definite, poetry with _in_ +definite sensations, to which end music is an _essential_, since the +comprehension of sweet sound is our most indefinite conception. Music, +when combined with a pleasurable idea, is poetry; music without the idea +is simply music; the idea without the music is prose from its very +definiteness." Music embodied in a golden mist of thought and sentiment-- +this is Poe's poetic ideal. + +As illustrative of his musical rhythm, the following lines from _Al +Aaraaf_ may be given:-- + + "Ligeia! Ligeia! + My beautiful one! + Whose harshest idea + Will to melody run, + O! is it thy will + On the breezes to toss? + Or, capriciously still, + Like the lone Albatross, + Incumbent on night + (As she on the air) + To keep watch with delight + On the harmony there?" + +Or take the last stanza of _Israfel:_-- + + "If I could dwell + Where Israfel + Hath dwelt, and he where I, + He might not sing so wildly well + A mortal melody, + While a bolder note than this might swell + From my lyre within the sky." + +The two principal poems in the volume under consideration--_Al +Aaraaf_ and _Tamerlane_--are obvious imitations of Moore and +Byron. The beginning of _Al Aaraaf_, for example, might easily be +mistaken for an extract from _Lalla Rookh_, so similar are the +rhythm and rhyme:-- + + "O! nothing earthly save the ray + (Thrown back from flowers) of Beauty's eye, + As in those gardens where the day + Springs from the gems of Circassy-- + O! nothing earthly save the thrill + Of melody in woodland rill-- + Or (music of the passion-hearted) + Joy's voice so peacefully departed + That, like the murmur in the shell, + Its echo dwelleth and will dwell-- + Oh, nothing of the dross of ours-- + Yet all the beauty--all the flowers + That list our Love, and deck our bowers-- + Adorn yon world afar, afar-- + The wandering star." + +After his expulsion from West Point, Poe appears to have gone to +Richmond; but the long-suffering of Mr. Allan, who had married again +after the death of his first wife, was at length exhausted. He refused to +extend any further recognition to one whom he had too much reason to +regard as unappreciative and undeserving. Accordingly Poe was thrown upon +his own resources for a livelihood. He settled in Baltimore, where he had +a few acquaintances and friends, and entered upon that literary career +which is without parallel in American literature for its achievements, +its vicissitudes, and its sorrows. With no qualification for the struggle +of life other than intellectual brilliancy, he bitterly atoned, through +disappointment and suffering, for his defects of temper, lack of +judgment, and habits of intemperance. + +In 1833 the Baltimore _Saturday Visitor_ offered a prize of one +hundred dollars for the best prose story. This prize Poe won by his tale, +_A Ms. Found in a Bottle_. This success may be regarded as the first +step in his literary career. The ability displayed in this fantastic tale +brought him to the notice of John P. Kennedy, Esq., who at once +befriended him in his distress, and aided him in his literary projects. +He gave Poe, whom he found in extreme poverty, free access to his home +and, to use his own words, "brought him up from the very verge of +despair." + +After a year or more of hack work in Baltimore, Poe, through the +influence of his kindly patron, obtained employment on the _Southern +Literary Messenger_, and removed to Richmond in 1835. Here he made a +brilliant start; life seemed to open before him full of promise. In a +short time he was promoted to the editorship of the _Messenger_, and +by his tales, poems, and especially his reviews, he made that periodical +very popular. In a twelve-month he increased its subscription list from +seven hundred to nearly five thousand, and made the magazine a rival of +the _Knickerbocker_ and the _New Englander_. He was loudly +praised by the Southern press, and was generally regarded as one of the +foremost writers of the day. + +In the _Messenger_ Poe began his work as a critic. It is hardly +necessary to say that his criticism was of the slashing kind. He became +little short of a terror. With a great deal of critical acumen and a fine +artistic sense, he made relentless war on pretentious mediocrity, and +rendered good service to American letters by enforcing higher literary +standards. He was lavish in his charges of plagiarism; and he made use of +cheap, second-hand learning in order to ridicule the pretended +scholarship of others. He often affected an irritating and contemptuous +superiority. But with all his humbug and superciliousness, his critical +estimates, in the main, have been sustained. + +The bright prospects before Poe were in a few months ruthlessly blighted. +Perhaps he relied too much on his genius and reputation. It is easy for +men of ability to overrate their importance. Regarding himself, perhaps, +as indispensable to the _Messenger_, he may have relaxed in vigilant +self-restraint. It has been claimed that he resigned the editorship in +order to accept a more lucrative offer in New York; but the sad truth +seems to be that he was dismissed on account of his irregular habits. + +After eighteen months in Richmond, during which he had established a +brilliant literary reputation, Poe was again turned adrift. He went to +New York, where his story, _The Adventures of Arthur Gordon Pym_, +was published by the Harpers in 1838. It is a tale of the sea, written +with the simplicity of style and circumstantiality of detail that give +such charm to the works of Defoe. In spite of the fact that Cooper and +Marryat had created a taste for sea-tales, this story never became +popular. It is superabundant in horrors--a vein that had a fatal +fascination for the morbid genius of Poe. + +The same year in which this story appeared, Poe removed to Philadelphia, +where he soon found work on the _Gentleman's Magazine_, recently +established by the comedian Burton. He soon rose to the position of +editor-in-chief, and his talents proved of great value to the magazine. +His tales and critiques rapidly increased its circulation. But the actor, +whose love of justice does him great credit, could not approve of his +editor's sensational criticism. In a letter written when their cordial +relations were interrupted for a time, Burton speaks very plainly and +positively: "I cannot permit the magazine to be made a vehicle for that +sort of severity which you think is so 'successful with the mob. I am +truly much less anxious about making a monthly 'sensation' than I am upon +the point of fairness.... You say the people love havoc. I think they +love justice." Poe did not profit by his experience at Richmond, and +after a few months he was dismissed for neglect of duty. + +He was out of employment but a short time. In November, 1840, _Graham's +Magazine_ was established, and Poe appointed editor. At no other +period of his life did his genius appear to better advantage. Thrilling +stories and trenchant criticisms followed one another in rapid +succession. His articles on autography and cryptology attracted +widespread attention. In the former he attempted to illustrate character +by the handwriting; and in the latter he maintained that human ingenuity +cannot invent a cipher that human ingenuity cannot resolve. In the course +of a few months the circulation of the magazine (if its own statements +may be trusted) increased from eight thousand to forty thousand--a +remarkable circulation for that time. + +His criticism was based on the rather violent assumption "that, as a +literary people, we are one vast perambulating humbug." In most cases, he +asserted, literary prominence was achieved "by the sole means of a +blustering arrogance, or of a busy wriggling conceit, or of the most +bare-faced plagiarism, or even through the simple immensity of its +assumptions." These fraudulent reputations he undertook, "with the help +of a hearty good will" (which no one will doubt) "to tumble down." He +admitted that there were a few who rose above absolute "idiocy." "Mr. +Bryant is not _all_ a fool. Mr. Willis is not _quite_ an ass. +Mr. Longfellow _will_ steal but, perhaps, he cannot help it (for we +have heard of such things), and then it must not be denied that _nil +tetigit quod non ornavit_." But, in spite of such reckless and +extravagant assertion, there was still too much acumen and force in his +reviews for them to be treated with indifference or contempt. + +In about eighteen months Poe's connection with Graham was dissolved. The +reason has not been made perfectly clear; but from what we already know, +it is safe to charge it to Poe's infirmity of temper or of habit. His +protracted sojourn in Philadelphia was now drawing to a close. It had +been the most richly productive, as well as the happiest, period of his +life. For a time, sustained by appreciation and hope, he in a measure +overcame his intemperate habits. Griswold, his much-abused biographer, +has given us an interesting description of him and his home at this time: +"His manner, except during his fits of intoxication, was very quiet and +gentlemanly; he was usually dressed with simplicity and elegance; and +when once he sent for me to visit him, during a period of illness caused +by protracted and anxious watching at the side of his sick wife, I was +impressed by the singular neatness and the air of refinement in his home. +It was in a small house, in one of the pleasant and silent neighborhoods +far from the center of the town; and, though slightly and cheaply +furnished, everything in it was so tasteful and so fitly disposed that it +seemed altogether suitable for a man of genius." + +It was during his residence in Philadelphia that Poe wrote his choicest +stories. Among the masterpieces of this period are to be mentioned _The +Fall of the House of Usher_, _Ligeia_, which he regarded as his +best tale _The Descent into the Maelstrom_, _The Murders in the +Rue Morgue_, and _The Mystery of Marie Roget_. The general +character of his tales may be inferred from their titles. Poe delighted +in the weird, fantastic, dismal, horrible. There is no warmth of human +sympathy, no moral consciousness, no lessons of practical wisdom. His +tales are the product of a morbid but powerful imagination. His style is +in perfect keeping with his peculiar gifts. He had a highly developed +artistic sense. By his air of perfect candor, his minuteness of detail, +and his power of graphic description, he gains complete mastery over the +soul, and leads us almost to believe the impossible. Within the limited +range of his imagination (for he was by no means the universal genius he +fancied himself to be) he is unsurpassed, perhaps, by any other American +writer. + +Poe's career had now reached its climax, and after a time began its rapid +descent. In 1844 he moved to New York, where for a year or two his life +did not differ materially from what it had been in Philadelphia. He +continued to write his fantastic tales, for which he was poorly paid, and +to do editorial work, by which he eked out a scanty livelihood. He was +employed by N. P. Willis for a few months on the _Evening Mirror_ as +sub-editor and critic, and was regularly "at his desk from nine in the +morning till the paper went to press." + +It was in this paper, January 29, 1845, that his greatest poem, _The +Raven_, was published with a flattering commendation by Willis. It +laid hold of the popular fancy; and, copied throughout the length and +breadth of the land, it met a reception never before accorded to an +American poem. Abroad its success was scarcely less remarkable and +decisive. "This vivid writing," wrote Mrs. Browning, "this power _which +is felt_, has produced a sensation here in England. Some of my friends +are taken by the fear of it, and some by the music. I hear of persons who +are haunted by the 'Nevermore'; and an acquaintance of mine, who has the +misfortune of possessing a bust of Pallas, cannot bear to look at it in +the twilight." + +In 1845 Poe was associated with the management of the _Broadway +Journal_, which in a few months passed entirely into his hands. He had +long desired to control a periodical of his own, and in Philadelphia had +tried to establish a magazine. But, however brilliant as an editor, he +was not a man of administrative ability; and in three months he was +forced to suspend publication for want of means. Shortly afterward he +published in Godey's _Lady's Book_ a series of critical papers +entitled _Literati of New York_. The papers, usually brief, are +gossipy, interesting, sensational, with an occasional lapse into +contemptuous and exasperating severity. + +In the same year he published a tolerably complete edition of his poems +in the revised form in which they now appear in his works. The volume +contained nearly all the poems upon which his poetic fame justly rests. +Among those that may be regarded as embodying his highest poetic +achievement are _The Raven_, _Lenore_, _Ulalume_, _The +Bells_, _Annabel Lee_, _The Haunted Palace_, _The +Conqueror Worm_, _The City in the Sea_, _Eulalie_, and +_Israfel_. Rarely has so large a fame rested on so small a number of +poems, and rested so securely. His range of themes, it will be noticed, +is very narrow. As in his tales, he dwells in a weird, fantastic, or +desolate region--usually under the shadow of death. He conjures up +unearthly landscapes as a setting for his gloomy and morbid fancies. In +_The City in the Sea_, for example:-- + + "There shrines and palaces and towers + (Time-eaten towers that tremble not!) + Resemble nothing that is ours. + Around, by lifting winds forgot, + Resignedly beneath the sky + The melancholy waters lie." + +He conformed his poetic efforts to his theory that a poem should be +short. He maintained that the phrase "'a long poem' is simply a flat +contradiction in terms." His strong artistic sense gave him a firm +mastery over form. He constantly uses alliteration, assonance, +repetition, and refrain. These artifices form an essential part of _The +Raven_, _Lenore_, and _The Bells_. In his poems, as in his +tales, Poe was less anxious to set forth an experience or a truth than to +make an impression. His poetry aims at beauty in a purely artistic sense, +unassociated with truth or morals. It is, for the most part, singularly +vague, unsubstantial, and melodious. Some of his poems--and precisely +those in which his genius finds its highest expression--defy complete +analysis. _Ulalume_, for instance, remains obscure after the +twentieth perusal--its meaning lost in a haze of mist and music. Yet +these poems, when read in a sympathetic mood, never fail of their effect. +They are genuine creations; and, as a fitting expression of certain +mental states, they possess an indescribable charm, something like the +spell of the finest instrumental music. There is no mistaking Poe's +poetic genius. Though not the greatest, he is still the most original, of +our poets, and has fairly earned the high esteem in which his gifts are +held in America and Europe. + +During his stay in New York, Poe was often present in the literary +gatherings of the metropolis. He was sometimes accompanied by his sweet, +affectionate, invalid wife, whom in her fourteenth year he had married in +Richmond. According to Griswold, "His conversation was at times almost +supramortal in its eloquence. His voice was modulated with astonishing +skill; and his large and variably expressive eyes looked repose or shot +fiery tumult into theirs who listened, while his own face glowed, or was +changeless in pallor, as his imagination quickened his blood or drew it +back frozen to his heart." His writings are unstained by a single immoral +sentiment. + +Toward the latter part of his sojourn in New York, the hand of poverty +and want pressed upon him sorely. The failing health of his wife, to whom +his tender devotion is beyond all praise, was a source of deep and +constant anxiety. For a time he became an object of charity--a +humiliation that was exceedingly galling to his delicately sensitive +nature. To a sympathetic friend, who lent her kindly aid in this time of +need, we owe a graphic but pathetic picture of Poe's home shortly before +the death of his almost angelic wife: "There was no clothing on the bed, +which was only straw, but a snow-white counterpane and sheets. The +weather was cold, and the sick lady had the dreadful chills that +accompany the hectic fever of consumption. She lay on the straw bed, +wrapped in her husband's great-coat, with a large tortoise-shell cat in +her bosom. The wonderful cat seemed conscious of her great usefulness. +The coat and the cat were the sufferer's only means of warmth, except as +her husband held her hands, and her mother her feet." She died January +30, 1847. + +After this event Poe was never entirely himself again. The immediate +effect of his bereavement was complete physical and mental prostration, +from which he recovered only with difficulty. His subsequent literary +work deserves scarcely more than mere mention. His _Eureka_, an +ambitious treatise, the immortality of which he confidently predicted, +was a disappointment and failure. He tried lecturing, but with only +moderate success. His correspondence at this time reveals a broken, +hysterical, hopeless man. In his weakness, loneliness, and sorrow, he +resorted to stimulants with increasing frequency. Their terrible work was +soon done. On his return from a visit to Richmond, he stopped in +Baltimore, where he died from the effects of drinking, October 7, 1849. + +Thus ended the tragedy of his life. It is as depressing as one of his own +morbid, fantastic tales. His career leaves a painful sense of +incompleteness and loss. With greater self-discipline, how much more he +might have accomplished for himself and for others! Gifted, self-willed, +proud, passionate, with meager moral sense, he forfeited success by his +perversity and his vices. From his own character and experience he drew +the unhealthy and pessimistic views to which he has given expression in +the maddening poem, _The Conqueror Worm_. And if there were not +happier and nobler lives, we might well say with him, as we stand by his +grave:-- + + "Out--out are the lights--out all! + And, over each quivering form, + The curtain, a funeral pall, + Comes down with the rush of a storm, + And the angels, all pallid and wan, + Uprising, unveiling, affirm + That the play is the tragedy 'Man,' + And its hero the Conqueror Worm." + + + + +[Illustration: PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE.] + +CHAPTER III + +PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE + + +The poetry of Paul Hamilton Hayne is characterized by a singular delicacy +of sentiment and expression. There is an utter absence of what is gross +or commonplace. His poetry, as a whole, carries with it an atmosphere of +high-bred refinement. We recognize at once fineness of fiber and of +culture. It could not well be otherwise; for the poet traced the line of +his ancestors to the cultured nobility of England, and, surrounded by +wealth, was brought up in the home of Southern chivalry. + +The aristocratic lineage of the Hayne family was not reflected in its +political feelings and affiliations in this country. They were not +Tories; on the contrary, from the colonial days down to the Civil War +they showed themselves stoutly democratic. The Haynes were, in a measure, +to South Carolina what the Adamses and Quincys were to Massachusetts. A +chivalrous uncle of the poet, Colonel Arthur P. Hayne, fought in three +wars, and afterwards entered the United States Senate. Another uncle, +Governor Robert Y. Hayne, was a distinguished statesman, who did not fear +to cross swords with Webster in the most famous debate, perhaps, of our +national history. The poet's father was a lieutenant in the United States +navy, and died at sea when his gifted son was still an infant. These +patriotic antecedents were not without influence on the life and writings +of the poet. + +In the existing biographical sketches of Hayne we find little or no +mention of his mother. This neglect is undeserved. She was a cultured +woman of good English and Scotch ancestry. It was her hand that had the +chief fashioning of the young poet's mind and heart. She transmitted to +him his poetic temperament; and when his muse began its earliest flights, +she encouraged him with appreciative words and ambitious hopes. Hayne's +poems are full of autobiographic elements; and in one, entitled _To My +Mother_, he says:-- + + "To thee my earliest verse I brought, + All wreathed in loves and roses, + Some glowing boyish fancy, fraught + With tender May-wind closes; + _Thou_ didst not taunt my fledgling song, + Nor view its flight with scorning: + 'The bird,' thou saidst, 'grown fleet and strong, + Might yet outsoar the morning!'" + +Paul Hamilton Hayne was born in Charleston, South Carolina, January 1, +1830. At that time Charleston was the literary center of the South. Among +its wealthy and aristocratic circles there, was a literary group of +unusual gifts. Calhoun and Legaré were there; and William Gilmore Simms, +a man of great versatility, gathered about him a congenial literary +circle, in which we find Hayne and his scarcely less distinguished +friend, Henry Timrod. + +Hayne was graduated with distinction from Charleston College in 1850, +receiving a prize for superiority in English composition and elocution. +He then studied law; but, like many other authors both North and South, +the love of letters proved too strong for the practice of his profession. +His literary bent, as with most of our gifted authors, manifested itself +early, and even in his college days he became a devotee of the poetic +muse. The ardor of his devotion found expression in one of his early +poems, first called _Aspirations_, but in his later works appearing +under the title of _The Will and the Wing_:-- + + "Yet would I rather in the outward state + Of Song's immortal temple lay me down, + A beggar basking by that radiant gate, + Than bend beneath the haughtiest empire's crown. + + "For sometimes, through the bars, my ravished eyes + Have caught brief glimpses of a life divine, + And seen a far, mysterious rapture rise + Beyond the veil that guards the inmost shrine." + +Hayne served his literary apprenticeship in connection with several +periodicals. He was a favorite contributor to the _Southern Literary +Messenger_, for many years published in Richmond, Virginia, and +deservedly ranking as the best monthly issued in the South before the +Civil War. He was one of the editors of the _Southern Literary +Gazette_, a weekly published in his native city. Afterwards, as a +result of a plan devised at one of Simms's literary dinners, _Russell's +Magazine_, with Hayne as editor, was established, to use the language +of the first number, as "another depository for Southern genius, and a +new incentive, as we hope, for its active exercise." It was a monthly of +high excellence for the time; but for lack of adequate support it +suspended publication after an honorable career of two years. + +An article in _Russell's Magazine_ for August, 1857, elaborately +discusses the ante-bellum discouragements to authorship in the South. +Indifference, ignorance, and prejudice, the article asserted, were +encountered on every hand. "It may happen to be only a volume of noble +poetry, full of those universal thoughts and feelings which speak, not to +a particular people, but to all mankind. It is censured, at the South, as +not sufficiently Southern in spirit, while at the North it is pronounced +a very fair specimen of Southern commonplace. Both North and South agree +with one mind to condemn the author and forget his book." + +Hayne's critical work as editor of _Russell's Magazine_ is worthy of +note. In manly independence of judgment, though not in ferocity of style, +he resembled Poe. He prided himself on conscientious loyalty to literary +art. He disclaimed all sympathy with that sectional spirit which has +sometimes lauded a work merely for geographical reasons; and in the +critical reviews of his magazine he did not hesitate to point out and +censure crudeness in Southern writers. But, at the same time, it was a +more pleasing task to his generous nature to recognize and praise +artistic excellence wherever he found it. + +As a critic Hayne was, perhaps, severest to himself. His poetic standards +were high. In his maturer years he blamed the precipitancy with which, as +a youth, he had rushed into print. There is an interesting marginal note, +as his son tells us, in a copy of his first volume of verse, in which +_The Cataract_ is pronounced "the poorest piece in the volume. +Boyish and bombastic! Should have been whipped for publishing it!" It is +needless to say that the piece does not appear in his _Complete +Poems_. This severity of self-criticism, which exacted sincerity of +utterance, has imparted a rare average excellence to his work. + +In 1852 he married Miss Mary Middleton Michel, of Charleston, the +daughter of a distinguished French physician. Rarely has a union been +more happy. In the days of his prosperity she was an inspiration; and in +the long years of poverty and sickness that came later she was his +comfort and stay. In his poem, _The Bonny Brown Hand_, there is a +reflection of the love that glorified the toil and ills of this later +period:-- + + "Oh, drearily, how drearily, the sombre eve comes down! + And wearily, how wearily, the seaboard breezes blow! + But place your little hand in mine--so dainty, yet so brown! + For household toil hath worn away its rosy-tinted snow; + But I fold it, wife, the nearer, + And I feel, my love, 'tis dearer + Than all dear things of earth, + As I watch the pensive gloaming, + And my wild thoughts cease from roaming, + And birdlike furl their pinions close beside our peaceful hearth; + Then rest your little hand in mine, while twilight shimmers down, + That little hand, that fervent hand, that hand of bonny brown-- + The hand that holds an honest heart, and rules a happy hearth." + +Two small volumes of Hayne's poetry appeared before the Civil War from +the press of Ticknor & Co., Boston. They were made up chiefly of pieces +contributed to the _Southern Literary Messenger_, _Russsell's +Magazine_, and other periodicals in the South. The first volume +appeared in 1855, and the second in 1859. These volumes were well worthy +of the favorable reception they met with, and encouraged the poet to +dedicate himself more fully to his art. In the fullness of this +dedication, he reminds us of Longfellow, Tennyson, and Wordsworth, all of +whom he admired and loved. + +Few first volumes of greater excellence have ever appeared in this +country. The judicious critic was at once able to recognize the presence +of a genuine singer. The poet rises above the obvious imitation that was +a common vice among Southern singers before the Civil War. We may indeed +perceive the influence of Tennyson in the delicacy of the craftsmanship, +and the influence of Wordsworth in the deep and sympathetic treatment of +Nature; but Hayne's study of these great bards had been transmuted into +poetic culture, and is reflected only in the superior quality of his +work. There is no case of conscious or obvious imitation. + +The volume of 1859, which bears the title _Avolio and Other Poems_, +exhibits the poet's fondness for the sonnet and his admirable skill in +its use. Throughout his subsequent poetical career, he frequently chose +the sonnet as the medium for expressing his choicest thought. It is +hardly too much to claim that Hayne is the prince of American sonneteers. +The late Maurice Thompson said that he could pick out twenty of Hayne's +sonnets equal to almost any others in our language. In the following +sonnet, which is quoted by way of illustration, the poet gives us the key +to a large part of his work. He was a worshiper of beauty; and the +singleness of this devotion gives him his distinctive place in our poetic +annals. + + "Pent in this common sphere of sensual shows, + I pine for beauty; beauty of fresh mien, + And gentle utterance, and the charm serene, + Wherewith the hue of mystic dreamland glows; + I pine for lulling music, the repose + Of low-voiced waters, in some realm between + The perfect Adenne, and this clouded scene + Of love's sad loss, and passion's mournful throes; + A pleasant country, girt with twilight calm, + In whose fair heaven a moon of shadowy round + Wades through a fading fall of sunset rain; + Where drooping lotos-flowers, distilling balm, + Gleam by the drowsy streamlets sleep hath crown'd, + While Care forgets to sigh, and Peace hath balsamed pain." + +The great civil conflict of '61-'65 naturally stirred the poet's heart. +He was a patriotic son of the South. On the breaking out of hostilities, +he became a member of Governor Pickens's staff, and was stationed for a +time in Fort Sumter; but after a brief service he was forced to resign on +account of failing health. His principal service to the Southern cause +was rendered in his martial songs, which breathe a lofty, patriotic +spirit. They are remarkable at once for their dignity of manner and +refinement of utterance. There is an entire absence of the fierceness +that is to be found in some of Whittier's and Timrod's sectional lyrics. +Hayne lacked the fierce energy of a great reformer or partisan leader. +But nowhere else do we find a heart more sensitive to grandeur of +achievement or pathos of incident. He recognized the unsurpassed heroism +of sentiment and achievement displayed in the war; and in an admirable +sonnet, he exclaims:-- + + "Ah, foolish souls and false! who loudly cried + 'True chivalry no longer breathes in time.' + Look round us now; how wondrous, how sublime + The heroic lives we witness; far and wide + Stern vows by sterner deeds are justified; + Self-abnegation, calmness, courage, power, + Sway, with a rule august, our stormy hour, + Wherein the loftiest hearts have wrought and died-- + Wrought grandly, and died smiling. Thus, O God, + From tears, and blood, and anguish, thou hast brought + The ennobling act, the faith-sustaining thought-- + Till, in the marvelous present, one may see + A mighty stage, by knights and patriots trod, + Who had not shunned earth's haughtiest chivalry." + +The war brought the poet disaster. His beautiful home and the library he +has celebrated in a noble sonnet were destroyed in the bombardment of +Charleston. The family silver, which had been stored in Columbia for +safe-keeping, was lost in Sherman's famous "march to the sea." His native +state was in desolation; his friends, warm and true with the fidelity +which a common disaster brings, were generally as destitute and helpless +as himself. Under these disheartening circumstances, rendered still more +gloomy by the ruthless deeds of reconstruction, he withdrew to the pine +barrens of Georgia, where, eighteen miles from Augusta, he built a very +plain and humble cottage. He christened it Copse Hill; and it was here, +on a desk fashioned out of a workbench left by the carpenters, that many +of his choicest pieces, reflecting credit on American letters, and +earning for him a high place among American poets, were written. + +This modest home, which from its steep hillside-- + + "Catches morn's earliest and eve's latest glow,"-- + +the poet has commemorated in a sonnet, which gives us a glimpse of the +quiet, rural scenes that were dear to his heart:-- + + "Here, far from worldly strife, and pompous show, + The peaceful seasons glide serenely by, + Fulfill their missions, and as calmly die, + As waves on quiet shores when winds are low. + Fields, lonely paths, the one small glimmering rill + That twinkles like a wood-fay's mirthful eye, + Under moist bay leaves, clouds fantastical + That float and change at the light breeze's will,-- + To me, thus lapped in sylvan luxury, + Are more than death of kings, or empires' fall." + +His son, Mr. W. H. Hayne, has thrown an interesting light upon the poet's +methods of composition. Physical movement seemed favorable to his poetic +faculty; and many of his pieces were composed as he paced to and fro in +his study, or walked with stooping shoulders beneath the trees +surrounding Copse Hill. He was not mechanical or systematic in his poetic +work, but followed the impulse of inspiration. "The poetic impulse," his +son tells us, "frequently came to him so spontaneously as to demand +immediate utterance, and he would turn to the fly leaf of the book in +hand or on a neighboring shelf, and his pencil would soon record the +lines, or fragments of lines, that claimed release from his brain. The +labor of revision usually followed,--sometimes promptly, but not +infrequently after the fervor of conception had passed away." The +painstaking care with which the revising was done is revealed in the +artistic finish of almost every poem. + +Hayne's life at this time was truly heroic. With uncomplaining fortitude +he met the hardships of poverty and bore the increasing ills of failing +health. He never lost hope and courage. He lived the poetry that he +sang:-- + + "Still smiles the brave soul, undivorced from hope; + And, with unwavering eye and warrior mien, + Walks in the shadow dauntless and serene, + To test, through hostile years, the utmost scope + Of man's endurance--constant, to essay + All heights of patience free to feet of clay." + +And in the end he was not disappointed. Gradually his genius gained +general recognition. The leading magazines of the country were opened to +him; and, as Stedman remarks, "his people regarded him with a tenderness +which, if a commensurate largess had been added, would have made him feel +less solitary among his pines." + +In 1872 a volume of _Legends and Lyrics_ was issued by Lippincott & +Co. It shows the poet's genius in the full power of maturity. His legends +are admirably told, and _Aëthra_ is a gem of its kind. But the +richness of Hayne's imagination was better suited to lyric than to +narrative or dramatic poetry. The latter, indeed, abounds in rare beauty +of thought and expression; but somehow this luxuriance seems to retard or +obscure the movement. The lyric pieces of this volume are full of self- +revelation, autobiography, and Southern landscape. Hayne was not an +apostle of the strenuous life; he preferred to dream among the beauties +or sublimities of Nature. Thus, in _Dolce far Niente_, he says:-- + + "Let the world roll blindly on! + Give me shadow, give me sun, + And a perfumed eve as this is: + Let me lie + Dreamfully, + Where the last quick sunbeams shiver + Spears of light athwart the river, + And a breeze, which seems the sigh + Of a fairy floating by, + Coyly kisses + Tender leaf and feathered grasses; + Yet so soft its breathing passes, + These tall ferns, just glimmering o'er me, + Blending goldenly before me, + Hardly quiver!" + +The well-known friendship existing between Hayne and his brother poet +Timrod was a beautiful one. As schoolboys they had encouraged each other +in poetic efforts. As editor of _Russell's Magazine_, Hayne had +welcomed and praised Timrod's contributions. For the edition of Timrod's +poems published in 1873, Hayne prepared a generous and beautiful memoir, +in which he quoted the opinion of some Northern writers who assigned the +highest place to his friend among the poets of the South. In the +_Legends and Lyrics_ there is a fine poem, _Under the Pine_, +commemorative of Timrod's visit to Copse Hill shortly before his death:-- + + "O Tree! against thy mighty trunk he laid + His weary head; thy shade + Stole o'er him like the first cool spell of sleep: + It brought a peace _so_ deep, + The unquiet passion died from out his eyes, + As lightnings from stilled skies. + + "And in that calm he loved to rest, and hear + The soft wind-angels, clear + And sweet, among the uppermost branches sighing: + Voices he heard replying + (Or so he dreamed) far up the mystic height, + And pinions rustling light." + +As illustrating his rich fancy and graphic power of diction, a few +stanzas are given from _Cloud Pictures_. They are not unworthy of +Tennyson in his happiest moments. + + "At calm length I lie + Fronting the broad blue spaces of the sky, + Covered with cloud-groups, softly journeying by: + + "An hundred shapes, fantastic, beauteous, strange, + Are theirs, as o'er yon airy waves they range + At the wind's will, from marvelous change to change: + + "Castles, with guarded roof, and turret tall, + Great sloping archway, and majestic wall, + Sapped by the breezes to their noiseless fall! + + "Pagodas vague! above whose towers outstream + Banners that wave with motions of a dream-- + Rising or drooping in the noontide gleam; + + "Gray lines of Orient pilgrims: a gaunt band + On famished camels, o'er the desert sand + Plodding towards their prophet's Holy Land; + + "Mid-ocean,--and a shoal of whales at play, + Lifting their monstrous frontlets to the day, + Through rainbow arches of sun-smitten spray; + + "Followed by splintered icebergs, vast and lone, + Set in swift currents of some arctic zone, + Like fragments of a Titan world o'erthrown." + +In 1882 a complete edition of Hayne's poems was published by D. Lothrop & +Co. Except a few poems written after that date and still uncollected, +this edition contains his later productions, in which we discover an +increasing seriousness, richness, and depth. The general range of +subjects, as in his earlier volumes, is limited to his Southern +environment and individual experience. This limitation is the severest +charge that can be brought against his poetry, but, at the same time, it +is an evidence of his sincerity and truth. He did not aspire, as did some +of his great Northern contemporaries, to the office of moralist, +philosopher, or reformer. He was content to dwell in the quiet realm of +beauty as it appears, to use the words of Margaret J. Preston, in the +"aromatic freshness of the woods, the swaying incense of the cathedral- +like isles of pines, the sough of dying summer winds, the glint of lonely +pools, and the brooding notes of leaf-hidden mocking-birds." But the +beauty and pathos of human life were not forgotten; and now and then he +touched upon the great spiritual truths on which the splendid heroism of +his life was built. For delicacy of feeling and perfection of form, his +meditative and religious poems deserve to rank among the best in our +language. They contain what is so often lacking in poetry of this class, +genuine poetic feeling and artistic expression. + +The steps of death approached gradually; for, like two other great poets +of the South, Timrod and Lanier, he was not physically strong. Though +sustained through his declining years by "the ultimate trust"-- + + "That love and mercy, Father, still are thine,"-- + +he felt a pathetic desire to linger awhile in the love of his tender, +patient, helpful wife:-- + + "A little while I fain would linger here; + Behold! who knows what soul-dividing bars + Earth's faithful loves may part in other stars? + Nor can love deem the face of death is fair: + A little while I still would linger here." + +Paul Hamilton Hayne passed away July 6, 1886. As already brought out in +the course of this sketch, he was not only a gifted singer, but also a +noble man. His extraordinary poetic gifts have not yet been fully +recognized. Less gifted singers have been placed above him. No biography +has been written to record with fond minuteness the story of his +admirable life and achievement. His writings in prose, and a few of his +choicest lyrics, still remain unpublished. Let us hope that this reproach +to Southern letters may soon be removed, and that this laureate of the +South may yet come to the full inheritance of fame to which the children +of genius are inalienably entitled. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +HENRY TIMROD + + +In some respects there is a striking similarity in the lives of the three +Southern poets, Hayne, Timrod, and Lanier. They were alike victims of +misfortune, and in their greatest tribulations they exhibited the same +heroic patience and fortitude. + + "They knew alike what suffering starts + From fettering need and ceaseless pain; + But still with brave and cheerful hearts, + Whose message hope and joy imparts, + They sang their deathless strain." + +The fate of Timrod was the saddest of them all. Gifted with uncommon +genius, he never saw its full fruitage; and over and over again, when +some precious hope seemed about to be realized, it was cruelly dashed to +the ground. There is, perhaps, no sadder story in the annals of +literature. + +Henry Timrod was born in Charleston, South Carolina, December 28, 1829. +He was older than his friend Hayne by twenty-three days. The law of +heredity seems to find exemplification in his genius. The Timrods, a +family of German descent, were long identified with the history of South +Carolina. The poet's grandfather belonged to the German Fusiliers of +Charleston, a volunteer company organized in 1775, after the battle of +Lexington, for the defense of the American colonies. In the Seminole War, +the poet's father, Captain William Henry Timrod, commanded the German +Fusiliers in Florida. He was a gifted man, whose talents attracted an +admiring circle of friends. "By the simple mastery of genius," says +Hayne, "he gained no trifling influence among the highest intellectual +and social circles of a city noted at that period for aristocratic +exclusiveness." + +[Illustration: HENRY TIMROD.] + +Timrod's father was not only an eloquent talker, but also a poet. A +strong intellect was associated with delicate feelings. He had the gift +of musical utterance; and the following verses from his poem, _To Time +--the Old Traveler_, were pronounced by Washington Irving equal to any +lyric written by Tom Moore:-- + + "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. + + * * * * * + + "'Tis 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!" + +On his mother's side the poet was scarcely less fortunate in his +parentage. She was as beautiful in form and face as in character. From +her more than from his father the poet derived his love of Nature. She +delighted in flowers and trees and stars; she caught the glintings of the +sunshine through the leaves; she felt a thrill of joy at the music of +singing birds and of murmuring waters. With admirable maternal tenderness +she taught her children to discern and appreciate the lovely sights and +sounds of nature. + +Timrod received his early education in a Charleston school, where he sat +next to Hayne. He was an ambitious boy, insatiable in his desire for +knowledge; at the same time, he was fond of outdoor sports, and enjoyed +the respect and confidence of his companions. His poetic activity dates +from this period. "I well remember," says Hayne, "the exultation with +which he showed me one morning his earliest consecutive attempt at verse- +making. Our down-East schoolmaster, however, could boast of no turn for +sentiment, and having remarked us hobnobbing, meanly assaulted us in the +rear, effectually quenching for the time all aesthetic enthusiasm." + +When sixteen or seventeen years of age he entered the University of +Georgia. He was cramped for lack of means; sickness interfered with his +studies, and at length he was forced to leave the university without his +degree. But his interrupted course was not in vain. His fondness for +literature led him, not only to an intelligent study of Virgil, Horace, +and Catullus, but also to an unusual acquaintance with the leading poets +of England. His pen was not inactive, and some of his college verse, +published over a fictitious signature in a Charleston paper, attracted +local attention. + +After leaving college Timrod returned to Charleston, and entered upon the +study of law in the office of the Hon. J. L. Petigru. But the law was not +adapted to his tastes and talents, and, like Hayne, he early abandoned it +to devote himself to literature. He was timid and retiring in +disposition. "His walk was quick and nervous," says Dr. J. Dickson Bruns, +"with an energy in it that betokened decision of character, but ill +sustained by the stammering speech; for in society he was the shyest and +most undemonstrative of men. To a single friend whom he trusted, he would +pour out his inmost heart; but let two or three be gathered together, +above all, introduce a stranger, and he instantly became a quiet, +unobtrusive listener, though never a moody or uncongenial one." + +He aspired to a college professorship, for which he made diligent +preparation in the classics; but in spite of his native abilities and +excellent attainments, he never secured this object of his ambition. +Leaving Charleston, he became a tutor in private families; but on holiday +occasions he was accustomed to return to the city, where he was cordially +welcomed by his friends. Among these was William Gilmore Simms, a sort of +Maecenas to aspiring genius, who gathered about him the younger literary +men of his acquaintance. At the little dinners he was accustomed to give, +no one manifested a keener enjoyment than Timrod, when, in the words of +Hayne:-- + + "Around the social board + The impetuous flood tide poured + Of curbless mirth, and keen sparkling jest + Vanished like wine-foam on its golden crest." + +During all these years of toil and waiting the poetic muse was not idle. +Under the pseudonym "Aglaus," the name of a minor pastoral poet of +Greece, he became a frequent and favorite contributor to the _Southern +Literary Messenger_ of Richmond, Virginia. Later he became one of the +principal contributors, both in prose and poetry, to _Russell's +Magazine_ in Charleston. It was in these periodicals that the +foundation of his fame was laid. + +Timrod's first volume of poetry, made up of pieces taken chiefly from +these magazines, appeared in 1860, from the press of Ticknor & Fields, +Boston. It was Hayne's judgment that "a better first volume of the kind +has seldom appeared anywhere." It contains most of the pieces found in +subsequent editions of his works. Here and there, both North and South, a +discerning critic recognized in the poet "a lively, delicate fancy, and a +graceful beauty of expression." But, upon the whole, the book attracted +little attention--a fact that came to the poet as a deep disappointment. +In the words of Dr. Bruns, who was familiar with the circumstances of the +poet, "success was to him a bitter need, for not his _living_ +merely, but his _life_ was staked upon it." + +When this volume appeared, Timrod was more than a poetic tyro. Apart from +native inspiration, in which he was surpassed by few of his +contemporaries, he had reflected profoundly on his art, and nursed his +genius on the masterpieces of English song. In addition to Shakespeare he +had carefully pondered Milton, Wordsworth, and Tennyson. From Wordsworth +especially he learned to appreciate the poetry of common things, and to +discern the mystic presence of that spirit,-- + + "Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, + And the round ocean, and the living air, + And the blue sky, and in the mind of man." + +Timrod, like Poe, formulated a theory of poetry which it is interesting +to study, as it throws light on his own work. It reveals to us the ideal +at which he aimed. In a famous essay Poe made beauty the sole realm and +end of poetry. To Timrod belongs the credit of setting forth a larger and +juster conception of the poetic art. To beauty he adds _power_ and +_truth_ as legitimate sources of poetry. "I think," he says, "when +we recall the many and varied sources of poetry, we must, perforce, +confess that it is wholly impossible to reduce them all to the simple +element of beauty. Two other elements, at least, must be added, and these +are power, when it is developed in some noble shape, and truth, whether +abstract or not, when it affects the common heart of mankind." + +Timrod regarded a poem as a work of art. He justly held that a poem +should have "one purpose, and that the materials of which it is composed +should be so selected and arranged as to help enforce it." He +distinguished between the moment of inspiration, "when the great thought +strikes for the first time along the brain and flushes the cheek with the +sudden revelation of beauty or grandeur, and the hour of patient, +elaborate execution." Accordingly he quoted with approval the lines of +Matthew Arnold:-- + + "We cannot kindle when we will + The fire that in the heart resides; + The spirit bloweth and is still; + In mystery our soul abides; + But tasks in hours of insight willed, + May be through hours of gloom fulfilled." + +Timrod's poetry is characterized by clearness, simplicity, and force. He +was not a mystic; his thoughts and emotions are not obscured in voluble +melody. To him poetry is more than rhythmic harmony. Beneath his delicate +imagery and rhythmical sweetness are poured treasures of thought and +truth. In diction he belongs to the school of Wordsworth; his language is +not strained or farfetched, but such as is natural to cultured men in a +state of emotion. "Poetry," he says in an early volume of _Russell's +Magazine_, "does not deal in abstractions. However abstract be his +thought, the poet is compelled, by his passion-fused imagination, to give +it life, form, or color. Hence the necessity of employing the _sensuous +or concrete_ words of the language, and hence the exclusion of long +words, which in English are nearly all purely and austerely +_abstract_, from the poetic vocabulary." + +He defends the use of the sonnet, in which, like Hayne, he excelled. He +admits that the sonnet is artificial in structure; but, as already +pointed out, he distinguishes the moment of inspiration, from the +subsequent labor of composition. In the act of writing, the poet passes +into the artist. And "the very restriction so much complained of in the +sonnet," he says, "the artist knows to be an advantage. It forces him to +condensation." His sonnets are characterized by a rare lucidity of +thought and expression. + +The principal piece in Timrod's first volume, to which we now return, and +the longest poem he ever wrote, is entitled _A Vision of Poesy_. In +the experience of the imaginative hero, who seems an idealized portrait +of the poet himself, we find an almost unequaled presentation of the +nature and uses of poetry. The spirit of Poesy, "the angel of the earth," +thus explains her lofty mission:-- + + "And ever since that immemorial hour + When the glad morning stars together sung, + My task hath been, beneath a mightier Power, + To keep the world forever fresh and young; + I give it not its fruitage and its green, + But clothe it with a glory all unseen." + +And what are the objects on which this angel of Poesy loves to dwell? +Truth, freedom, passion, she answers, and-- + + "All lovely things, and gentle--the sweet laugh + Of children, girlhood's kiss, and friendship's clasp, + The boy that sporteth with the old man's staff, + The baby, and the breast its fingers grasp-- + All that exalts the grounds of happiness, + All griefs that hallow, and all joys that bless, + + "To me are sacred; at my holy shrine + Love breathes its latest dreams, its earliest hints; + I turn life's tasteless waters into wine, + And flush them through and through with purple tints. + Wherever earth is fair, and heaven looks down, + I rear my altars, and I wear my crown." + +Many of the poems in this first volume are worthy of note, as revealing +some phase of the poet's versatile gifts--delicate fancy, simplicity and +truth, lucid force, or finished art. _The Lily Confidante_, is a +light, lilting fancy, the moral of which is:-- + + "Love's the lover's only magic, + Truth the very subtlest art; + Love that feigns, and lips that flatter, + Win no modest heart." + +_The Past_ was first published in the _Southern Literary +Messenger_, and afterwards went the rounds of the press. It teaches +the important truth that we are the sum of all we have lived through. The +past forms the atmosphere which we breathe today; it is-- + + "A shadowy land, where joy and sorrow kiss, + Each still to each corrective and relief, + Where dim delights are brightened into bliss, + And nothing wholly perishes but grief. + + "Ah me!--not dies--no more than spirit dies; + But in a change like death is clothed with wings; + A serious angel, with entranced eyes, + Looking to far-off and celestial things." + +Timrod possessed an ardent spirit that was stirred to its depths by the +Civil War. His martial songs, with their fierce intensity, better voiced +the feelings of the South at that time than those of Hayne or any other +Southern singer. In his _Ethnogenesis_--the birth of a nation--he +celebrates in a lofty strain the rise of the Confederacy, of which he +cherished large and generous hopes:-- + + "The type + Whereby we shall be known in every land + Is that vast gulf which lips our Southern strand, + And through the cold, untempered ocean pours + Its genial streams, that far off Arctic shores + May sometimes catch upon the softened breeze + Strange tropic warmth and hints of summer seas." + +But his most stirring lyrics are _Carolina_ and _A Cry to +Arms_, which in the exciting days of '61 deeply moved the Southern +heart, but which today serve as melancholy mementos of a long-past +sectional bitterness. Of the vigorous lines of the former, Hayne says in +an interesting autobiographic touch, "I read them first, and was thrilled +by their power and pathos, upon a stormy March evening in Fort Sumter! +Walking along the battlements, under the red lights of a tempestuous +sunset, the wind steadily and loudly blowing from off the bar across the +tossing and moaning waste of waters, driven inland; with scores of gulls +and white sea-birds flying and shrieking round me,--those wild voices of +Nature mingled strangely with the rhythmic roll and beat of the poet's +impassioned music. The very spirit, or dark genius, of the troubled scene +appeared to take up, and to repeat such verses as:-- + + "'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!'" + +These impassioned war lyrics brought the poet speedy popularity. For a +time his hopes were lifted up to a roseate future. In 1862 some of his +influential friends formed the project of bringing out a handsome edition +of his poems in London. The war correspondent of the _London +Illustrated News_, himself an artist, volunteered to furnish original +illustrations. The scheme, at which the poet was elated, promised at once +bread and fame. But, as in so many other instances, he was doomed to +bitter disappointment. The increasing stress of the great conflict +absorbed the energies of the South; and the promising plan, +notwithstanding the poet's popularity, was buried beneath the noise and +tumult of battle. + +Disqualified by feeble health from serving in the ranks, Timrod, shortly +after the battle of Shiloh, went to Tennessee as the war correspondent of +the _Charleston Mercury_. To his retiring and sympathetic nature the +scenes of war were painful. "One can scarcely conceive," says Dr. Bruns, +"of a situation more hopelessly wretched than that of a mere child in the +world's ways suddenly flung down into the heart of that strong retreat, +and tossed like a straw on the crest of those refluent waves, from which +he escaped as by a miracle." + +In 1863 he went to Columbia as associate editor of the _South +Carolinian_. He was scarcely less happy and vigorous in prose than in +verse. A period of prosperity seemed at last to be dawning; and, in the +cheerful prospect, he ventured to marry Miss Kate Goodwin of Charleston, +"Katie, the fair Saxon," whom he had long loved and of whom he had sung +in one of his longest and sweetest poems. But his happiness was of brief +duration. In a twelvemonth the army of General Sherman entered Columbia, +demolished his office, and sent him adrift as a helpless fugitive. + +The close of the war found him a ruined man; he was almost destitute of +property and broken in health. He was obliged to sell some of his +household furniture to keep his family in bread. "We have," he says, in a +sadly playful letter to Hayne at this period, "we have--let me see!--yes, +we have eaten two silver pitchers, one or two dozen silver forks, several +sofas, innumerable chairs, and a huge--bedstead!" He could find no paying +market for his poems in the impoverished South; and in the North +political feeling was still too strong to give him access to the +magazines there. The only employment he could find was some clerical work +for a season in the governor's office, where he sometimes toiled far +beyond his strength. In this time of discouragement and need, the gloom +of which was never lifted, he pathetically wrote to Hayne: "I would +consign every line of my verse to eternal oblivion for _one hundred +dollars in hand_." + +In 1867 his physicians recommended a change of air; and accordingly he +spent a month with his lifelong friend Hayne at Copse Hill. It was the +one rift in the clouds before the fall of night. There is a pathetic +beauty in the fellowship of the two poets during these brief weeks, when, +with spirits often attuned to high thought and feeling, they roamed +together among the pines or sat beneath the stars. "We would rest on the +hillsides," says Hayne, "in the swaying golden shadows, watching together +the Titanic masses of snow-white clouds which floated slowly and vaguely +through the sky, suggesting by their form, whiteness, and serene motion, +despite the season, flotillas of icebergs upon Arctic seas. Like +lazzaroni we basked in the quiet noons, sunk in the depths of reverie, or +perhaps of yet more 'charmed sleep.' Or we smoked, conversing lazily +between the puffs,-- + + 'Next to some pine whose antique roots just peeped + From out the crumbling bases of the sand.'" + +Timrod survived but a few weeks after his return to Columbia. The +circumstances of his death were most pathetic. Though sustained by +Christian hopes, he still longed to live a season with the dear ones +about him. When, after a period of intense agony that preceded his +dissolution, his sister murmured to him, "You will soon be at rest +_now_," he replied, with touching pathos, "Yes, my sister, _but +love is sweeter than rest_." He died October 7, 1867, and was laid to +rest in Trinity churchyard, where his grave long remained unmarked. + +Two principal editions of his works have been published: the first in +1873, with an admirable memoir by Hayne; the second in 1899, under the +auspices of the Timrod Memorial Association of South Carolina. A number +of his poems and his prose writings still remain uncollected; and there +is yet no biography that fully records the story of his life. This fact +is not a credit to Southern letters, for, as we have seen, Timrod was a +poet of more than commonplace ability and achievement. + +For the most part, his themes were drawn from the ordinary scenes and +incidents of life. He was not ambitious of lofty subjects, remote from +the hearts and homes of men. He placed sincerity above grandeur; he +preferred love to admiration. He was always pure, brave, and true; and, +as he sang:-- + + "The brightest stars are nearest to the earth, + And we may track the mighty sun above, + Even by the shadow of a slender flower. + Always, O bard, humility is power! + And thou mayest draw from matters of the hearth + Truths wide as nations, and as deep as love." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +SIDNEY LANIER + + +Lanier's genius was predominantly musical. He descended from a musical +ancestry, which included in its line a "master of the king's music" at +the court of James I. His musical gifts manifested themselves in early +childhood. Without further instruction in music than a knowledge of the +notes, which he learned from his mother, he was able to play, almost by +intuition, the flute, guitar, violin, piano, and organ. He organized his +boyish playmates into an amateur minstrel band; and when in early manhood +he began to confide his most intimate thoughts to a notebook, he wrote, +"The prime inclination--that is, natural bent (which I have checked, +though)--of my nature is to music, and for that I have the greatest +talent; indeed, not boasting, for God gave it me, I have an extraordinary +musical talent, and feel it within me plainly that I could rise as high +as any composer." + +This early bent and passion for music never left him. His thought +continually turned to the subject of music, and in the silences of his +soul he frequently heard wonderful melodies. In his novel, _Tiger +Lilies_, he lauds music in a rapturous strain: "Since in all holy +worship, in all conditions of life, in all domestic, social, religious, +political, and lonely individual doings; in all passions, in all +countries, earthly or heavenly; in all stages of civilization, of time, +or of eternity; since, I say, in all these, music is always present to +utter the shallowest or the deepest thoughts of man or spirit--let us +cease to call music a fine art, to class it with delicate pastry cookery +and confectionery, and to fear to make too much of it lest it should make +us sick." At a later period, while seeking to regain his health by a +sojourn in Texas, he wrote to his wife: "All day my soul hath been +cutting swiftly into the great space of the subtle, unspeakable deep, +driven by wind after wind of heavenly melody. The very inner spirit and +essence of all wind-songs, bird-songs, passion-songs, folk-songs, +country-songs, sex-songs, soul-songs, and body-songs, hath blown upon me +in quick gusts like the breath of passion, and sailed me into a sea of +vast dreams, whereof each wave is at once a vision and a melody." + +[Illustration: SIDNEY LANIER.] + +This predominance of music in the genius of Lanier is at once the source +of his strength and of his weakness in poetry. In his poems, and in his +work entitled _The Science of English Verse_, it is the musical +element of poetry upon which the principal emphasis is laid. This fact +makes him the successor of Poe in American letters. Both in theory and in +practice Lanier has, as we shall see, achieved admirable results. But, +after all, the musical element of poetry is of minor importance. It is a +means, and not an end. No jingle of sound can replace the delicacy of +fancy, nobleness of sentiment and energy of thought that constitute what +we may call the soul of poetry. Rhapsody is not the highest form of +poetic achievement. In its noblest forms poetry is the medium through +which great souls, like Homer, Virgil, Shakespeare, Milton, Tennyson, +give to the world, with classic self-restraint, the fruitage of their +highest thought and emotion. + +The life of Lanier was a tragedy. While lighted here and there with a +fleeting joy, its prevailing tone was one of sadness. The heroic courage +with which he met disease and poverty impart to his life an inspiring +grandeur. He was born at Macon, Georgia, February 3, 1842. His sensitive +spirit early responded to the beauties of Nature; and in his hunting and +fishing trips, in which he was usually accompanied by his younger brother +Clifford, he caught something of the varied beauties of marsh, wood, and +sky, which were afterwards to be so admirably woven into his poems. He +early showed a fondness for books, and in the well-stored shelves of his +father's library he found ample opportunity to gratify his taste for +reading. His literary tastes were doubtless formed on the old English +classics--Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, Addison--which formed a part of +every Southern gentleman's library. + +At the age of fifteen he entered the Sophomore class of Oglethorpe +College, near Milledgeville, an institution that did not have sufficient +vitality to survive the Civil War. He did not think very highly of the +course of instruction, and found his chief delight, as perhaps the best +part of his culture, in the congenial circle of friends he gathered +around him. The evenings he spent with them were frequently devoted to +literature and music. A classmate, Mr. T. F. Newell, gives us a vivid +picture of these social features of his college life. "I can recall," he +says, "my association with him with sweetest pleasure, especially those +Attic nights, for they are among the dearest and tenderest recollections +of my life, when with a few chosen companions we would read from some +treasured volume, it may have been Tennyson, or Carlyle, or Christopher +North's _Noctes Ambrosianoe_, or we would make the hours vocal with +music and song; those happy nights, which were veritable refections of +the gods, and which will be remembered with no other regret than that +they will nevermore return. On such occasions I have seen him walk up and +down the room and with his flute extemporize the sweetest music ever +vouchsafed to mortal ear. At such times it would seem as if his soul were +in a trance, and could only find existence, expression, in the ecstasy of +tone, that would catch our souls with his into the very seventh heaven of +harmony." + +Lanier was a diligent student, and easily stood among the first of his +classes, particularly in mathematics. His reading took a wide range. In +addition to the leading authors of the nineteenth century, he showed a +fondness for what was old and quaint in our literature. He delighted in +Burton's _Anatomy of Melancholy_ and in the works of "the poet- +preacher," Jeremy Taylor. At this time, too, his thoughtful nature turned +to the serious problem of his life work. He eagerly questioned his +capabilities as preliminary, to use his own words, "to ascertaining God's +will with reference to himself." As already learned from his notebook, he +early recognized his extraordinary gifts in music. But his ambition aimed +at more than a musician's career, for it seemed to him, as he said, that +there were greater things that he might do. + +His ability and scholarship made a favorable impression on the college +authorities, and immediately after his graduation he was elected to a +tutorship. From this position, so congenial to his scholarly tastes, he +was called, after six months, by the outbreak of the Civil War. In his +boyhood he had shown a martial spirit. With his younger brother he joined +the Macon Volunteers, and soon saw heavy service in Virginia. He took +part in the battles of Seven Pines, Drewry's Bluffs, and Malvern Hill, in +all of which he displayed a chivalrous courage. Afterward he became a +signal officer and scout. "Nearly two years," he says, in speaking of +this part of his service, "were passed in skirmishes, racing to escape +the enemy's gunboats, signaling dispatches, serenading country beauties, +poring over chance books, and foraging for provender." In 1864 he became +a blockade runner, and in his first run out from near Fort Fisher, he was +captured and taken to Point Lookout prison. + +It is remarkable that, amid the distractions and hardships of active +service, his love of music and letters triumphantly asserted itself. His +flute was his constant companion. He utilized the brief intervals of +repose that came to him in camp to set some of Tennyson's songs to music +and to prosecute new lines of literary study. He took up the study of +German, in which he became quite proficient, and by the light of the camp +fire at night translated from Heine, Schiller, and Goethe. At the same +time his sympathy with the varied aspects of Nature was deepened. Trees +and flowers and ferns revealed to him their mystic beauty; and like +Wordsworth, he found it easy, "in the lily, the sunset, the mountain, and +rosy hues of all life, to trace God." + +It was during his campaigns in Virginia that he began the composition of +his only novel, _Tiger Lilies_, which was not completed, however, +till 1867. It is now out of print. Though immature and somewhat chaotic, +it clearly reveals the imaginative temperament of the author. War is +imaged to his mind as "a strange, enormous, terrible flower," which he +wishes might be eradicated forever and ever. As might be expected, music +finds an honored place in its pages. He regards music as essential to the +home. "Given the raw materials," he says, "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 that music is the one essential. After the +evening spent around the piano, or the flute, or the violin, how warm and +how chastened is the kiss with which the family all say good night! Ah, +the music has taken all the day cares and thrown them into its terrible +alembic and boiled them and rocked them and cooled them, till they are +crystallized into one care, which is a most sweet and rare desirable +sorrow--the yearning for God." + +After the war came a rude struggle for existence--a struggle in which +tuberculosis, contracted during his camp life, gradually sapped his +strength. Hemorrhages became not infrequent, and he was driven from one +locality to another in a vain search for health. But he never lost hope; +and his sufferings served to bring out his indomitable, heroic spirit, +and to stimulate him to the highest degree of intellectual activity. Few +men have accomplished more when so heavily handicapped by disease and +poverty. The record of his struggle is truly pathetic. In a letter to +Paul Hamilton Hayne, written in 1880, he gives us a glimpse both of his +physical suffering and his mental agony. "I could never tell you," he +says, "the extremity of illness, of poverty, and of unceasing toil, in +which I have spent the last three years, and you would need only once to +see the weariness with which I crawl to bed after a long day's work, and +after a long night's work at the heels of it--and Sundays just as well as +other days--in order to find in your heart a full warrant for my silence. +It seems incredible that I have printed such an unchristian quantity of +matter--all, too, tolerably successful--and secured so little money; and +the wife and the four boys, who are so lovely that I would not think a +palace good enough for them if I had it, make one's earnings seem all the +less." During all these years of toil he longed to be delivered from the +hard struggle for bread that he might give himself more fully to music +and poetry. + +In 1867, while in charge of a prosperous school at Prattville, Alabama, +he married Miss Mary Day, of Macon, Georgia. It proved a union in which +Lanier found perpetual inspiration and comfort. His new-found strength +and happiness are reflected in more than one of his poems. In +_Acknowledgment_ we read:-- + + "By the more height of thy sweet stature grown, + Twice-eyed with thy gray vision set in mine, + I ken far lands to wifeless men unknown, + I compass stars for one-sexed eyes too fine." + +And in _My Springs_, he says again, with great beauty:-- + + "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 1873, after giving up the study of law in his father's office, he went +to Baltimore, where he was engaged as first flute for the Peabody +Symphony concerts. This engagement was a bold undertaking, which cannot +be better presented than in his own words. In a letter to Hayne he says: +"Aside from the complete _bouleversement_ of proceeding from the +courthouse to the footlights, I was a raw player and a provincial withal, +without practice, and guiltless of instruction--for I had never had a +teacher. To go under these circumstances among old professional players, +and assume a leading part in a large orchestra which was organized +expressly to play the most difficult works of the great masters, was (now +that it's all over) a piece of temerity that I don't remember ever to +have equaled before. But I trusted in love, pure and simple, and was not +disappointed; for, as if by miracle, difficulties and discouragements +melted away before the fire of a passion for music which grows ever +stronger within my heart; and I came out with results more gratifying +than it is becoming in me to specify." His playing possessed an exquisite +charm. "In his hands the flute," to quote from the tribute paid him by +his director, "no longer remained a mere material instrument, but was +transformed into a voice that set heavenly harmonies into vibration. Its +tones developed colors, warmth, and a low sweetness of unspeakable +poetry; they were not only true and pure, but poetic, allegoric as it +were, suggestive of the depths and heights of being and of the delights +which the earthly ear never hears and the earthly eye never sees." + +Henceforth Baltimore was to be Lanier's home. In addition to music, he +gave himself seriously to literature. Before this period he had written a +number of poems, limited in range and somewhat labored in manner. The +current of his life still set to music, and his poetic efforts seem to +have been less a matter of inspiration than of deliberate choice. In +literary form the influence of Poe is discernible; but in subject-matter +the sounds and colors of Nature, as in the poetry of his later years, +occupy a prominent place. Of the poems of this early period the songs for +_The Jacquerie_ are the best. Here is a stanza of _Betrayal_:-- + + "The sun has kissed the violet sea, + And burned the violet to a rose. + O sea! wouldst thou not better be + More violet still? Who knows? Who knows? + Well hides the violet in the wood: + The dead leaf wrinkles her a hood, + And winter's ill is violet's good; + But the bold glory of the rose, + It quickly comes and quickly goes-- + Red petals whirling in white snows, + Ah me!" + +After taking up his residence in Baltimore, Lanier entered upon a +comprehensive course of reading and study, particularly in early English +literature. He studied Anglo-Saxon, and familiarized himself with +Langland and Chaucer. He understood that any great poetic achievement +must be based on extensive knowledge. A sweet warbler may depend on +momentary inspiration; but the great singer, who is to instruct and move +his age, must possess the insight and breadth of vision that come alone +from a profound acquaintance with Nature and human history. With keen +critical discernment Lanier said that "the trouble with Poe was, he did +not _know_ enough. He needed to know a good many more things in +order to be a great poet." It was to prepare himself for the highest +flights possible to him that he entered, with inextinguishable ardor, +upon a wide course of reading. + +In 1874 he was commissioned by a railroad company to write up the +scenery, climate, and history of Florida. While spending a month or two +with his family in Georgia, he wrote _Corn_, which deservedly ranks +as one of his noblest poems. The delicate forms and colors of Nature +touched him to an ecstasy of delight; and at the same time they bodied +forth to his imagination deep spiritual truths. As we read this poem, we +feel that the poet has reached a height of which little promise is given +in his earlier poems. Here are the opening lines:-- + + "To-day the woods are trembling through and through + With shimmering forms, and flash before my view, + Then melt in green as dawn-stars melt in blue. + The leaves that wave against my cheek caress + Like women's hands; the embracing boughs express + A subtlety of mighty tenderness; + The copse-depths into little noises start, + That sound anon like beatings of a heart, + Anon like talk 'twixt lips not far apart. + The beach dreams balm, as a dreamer hums a song; + Through that vague wafture, expirations strong + Throb from young hickories breathing deep and long + With stress and urgence bold of prisoned spring + And ecstasy burgeoning." + +This poem is remarkable, too, for its presentation of Lanier's conception +of the poetic office. The poet should be a prophet and leader, arousing +mankind to all noble truth and action:-- + + "Look, out of line one tall corn-captain stands + Advanced beyond the foremost of his bands, + And waves his blades upon the very edge + And hottest thicket of the battling hedge. + Thou lustrous stalk, that ne'er mayst walk nor talk, + Still shalt thou type the poet-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 godlike sense + Transmuted from the four wild elements." + +For a time Lanier had difficulty in finding a publisher. He made a visit +to New York, but met only with rebuffs. But upheld, like Wordsworth, by a +strong consciousness of the excellence of his work, he did not lose his +cheerful hope and courage. "The more I am thrown against these people +here, and the more reverses I suffer at their hands, the more confident I +am of beating them finally. I do not mean by 'beating' that I am in +opposition to them, or that I hate them or feel aggrieved with them; no, +they know no better and they act up to their light with wonderful energy +and consistency. I only mean that I am sure of being able, some day, to +teach them better things and nobler modes of thought and conduct." +_Corn_ finally appeared in _Lippincott's Magazine_ for February, +1875. + +From this time poetry became a larger part of Lanier's life. His poetic +genius had attained to fullness of power. He gave freer rein to +imagination and thought and expression. Speaking of _Special +Pleading_, which was written in 1875, he says: "In this little song, I +have begun to dare to give myself some freedom in my own peculiar style, +and have allowed myself to treat words, similes, and meters with such +freedom as I desired. The result convinces me that I can do so now +safely." In the next two or three years he produced such notable poems as +_The Song of the Chattahoochee_, _The Symphony_, _The Revenge +of Hamish_, _Clover_, _The Bee_, and _The Waving of the +Corn_. They slowly gained recognition, and brought him the fellowship +and encouragement of not a few literary people of distinction, among whom +Bayard Taylor and Edmund Clarence Stedman deserve especial mention. + +Perhaps none of Lanier's poems has been more popular than _The Song of +the Chattahoochee_. It does not reach the poetic heights of a few of +his other poems, but it is perfectly clear, and has a pleasant lilting +movement. Moreover, it teaches the important truth that we are to be dumb +to the siren voices of ease and pleasure when the stern voice of duty +calls. The concluding stanza is as follows:-- + + "But oh, not the hills of Habersham, + And oh, not the valleys of Hall, + Shall hinder the rain from attaining the plain, + For downward the voices of duty call-- + Downward to toil and be mixed with the main. + The dry fields burn and the mills are to turn, + And a thousand meadows mortally yearn, + And the final main from beyond the plain + Calls o'er the hills of Habersham, + And calls through the valleys of Hall." + +In 1876, upon the recommendation of Bayard Taylor, Lanier was invited to +write the centennial _Cantata_. As a poem, not much can be said in +its favor. Its thought and form fall far below its ambitious conception, +in which Columbia presents a meditation on the completed century of our +country's history. On its publication it was subject to a good deal of +unfavorable criticism; but through it all, though it must have been a +bitter disappointment, the poet never lost his faith in his genius and +destiny. "The artist shall put forth, humbly and lovingly," he wrote to +his father, "and without bitterness against opposition, the very best and +highest that is within him, utterly regardless of contemporary criticism. +What possible claim can contemporary criticism set up to respect--that +criticism which crucified Jesus Christ, stoned Stephen, hooted Paul for a +madman, tried Luther for a criminal, tortured Galileo, bound Columbus in +chains, and drove Dante into a hell of exile?" + +The need of a regular income became more and more a necessity. "My head +and my heart," he wrote, "are both so full of poems, which the dreadful +struggle for bread does not give me time to put on paper, that I am often +driven to headache and heartache purely for want of an hour or two to +hold a pen." He sought various positions--a clerkship in Washington, an +assistant's place in the Peabody Library, a consulship in the south of +France--all in vain. He lectured to parlor classes in literature--an +enterprise from which he seems to have derived more fame than money. +Finally, in 1879, he was appointed to a lectureship in English literature +in Johns Hopkins University, from which dates the final period of his +literary activity and of his life. + +The first fruits of this appointment were a series of lectures on +metrical forms, which appeared, in 1880, in a volume entitled _The +Science of English Verse_. It is an original and suggestive work, in +which, however, the author's predilections for music carry him too far. +He has done well to emphasize the time element in English versification; +but his attempt to reduce all forms of verse to a musical notation can +hardly be regarded as successful. His work, though comprehensive in +scope, was not intended to impose a new set of laws upon the poet. "For +the artist in verse," he says in his brief concluding chapter, "there is +no law: the perception and love of beauty constitute the whole outfit; +and what is herein set forth is to be taken merely as enlarging that +perception and exalting that love. In all cases, the appeal is to the +ear; but the ear should, for that purpose, be educated up to the highest +possible plane of culture." + +A second series of lectures, composed and delivered when the anguish of +mortal illness was upon him, was subsequently published under the title, +_The English Novel_. Its aim was to trace the development of +personality in literature. It contains much suggestive and sound +criticism. He did not share the fear entertained by some of his +contemporaries, that science would gradually abolish poetry. Many of the +finest poems in our language, as he pointed out, have been written while +the wonderful discoveries of recent science were being made. "Now," he +continues, "if we examine the course and progress of this poetry, born +thus within the very grasp and maw of this terrible science, it seems to +me that we find--as to the _substance_ of poetry--a steadily +increasing confidence and joy in the mission of the poet, in the +sacredness of faith and love and duty and friendship and marriage, and +the sovereign fact of man's personality, while as to the _form_ of +the poetry, we find that just as science has pruned our faith (to make it +more faithful), so it has pruned our poetic form and technic, cutting +away much unproductive wood and effloresence, and creating finer reserves +and richer yields." Among novelists he assigns the highest place to +George Eliot, who "shows man what he maybe in terms of what he is." + +There are two poems of this closing period that exhibit Lanier's +characteristic manner at its best. They are the high-water mark of his +poetic achievement. They exemplify his musical theories of meter. They +show the trend forced upon him by his innate love of music; and though he +might have written much more, if his life had been prolonged, it is +doubtful whether he would have produced anything finer. Any further +effort at musical effects would probably have resulted in a kind of +ecstatic rhapsody. The first of the poems in question is the _Marshes +of Glynn_, descriptive of the sea marshes near the city of Brunswick, +Georgia. + + "Ye marshes, how candid and simple and nothing-withholding and free-- + Ye publish yourselves to the sky and offer yourselves to the sea! + Tolerant plains, that suffer the sea and the rains and the sun, + Ye spread and span like the catholic man who hath mightily won + God out of knowledge, and good out of infinite pain, + And sight out of blindness, and purity out of a stain." + +The other poem of his closing period, _Sunrise_, his greatest +production, was written during the high fever of his last illness. In the +poet's collected works, it is placed first in the series called _Hymns +of the Marshes_. At times it almost reaches the point of ecstasy. His +love of Nature finds supreme utterance. + + "In my sleep I was fain of their fellowship, fain + Of the live-oak, the marsh, and the main. + The little green leaves would not let me alone in my sleep; + Up-breathed from the marshes, a message of range and of sweep, + Interwoven with waftures of wild sea-liberties, drifting, + Came through the lapped leaves sifting, sifting, + Came to the gates of sleep. + Then my thoughts, in the dark of the dungeon-keep + Of the Castle of Captives hid in the City of Sleep, + Upstarted, by twos and by threes assembling: + The gates of sleep fell a-trembling + Like as the lips of a lady that forth falter _yes_, + Shaken with happiness: + The gates of sleep stood wide. + + * * * * * + + "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 a-spring,-- + 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'erblown in a dream,-- + Yon dome of too-tenuous tissues of space and of night, + Overweighted with stars, overfreighted with light, + Oversated 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." + +Throughout his artistic life Lanier was true to the loftiest ideals. He +did not separate artistic from moral beauty. To his sensitive spirit, the +beauty of holiness and the holiness of beauty seemed interchangeable +terms. He did not make the shallow cry of "art for art's sake" a pretext +or excuse for moral taint. On the contrary, he maintained that all art +should be the embodiment of truth, goodness, love. "Can not one say with +authority," he inquires in one of his university lectures, "to the young +artist, whether working in stone, in color, in tones, or in character- +forms of the novel: so far from dreading that your moral purpose will +interfere with your beautiful creation, go forward in the clear +conviction that, unless you are suffused--soul and body, one might say-- +with that moral purpose which finds its largest expression in love--that +is, the love of all things in their proper relation--unless you are +suffused with this love, do not dare to meddle with beauty; unless you +are suffused with beauty, do not dare to meddle with truth; unless you +are suffused with truth, do not dare to meddle with goodness. In a word, +unless you are suffused with truth, wisdom, goodness, and love, abandon +the hope that the ages will accept you as an artist." + +Through these years of high aspiration and manly endeavor, the poet and +musician was waging a losing fight with consumption. He was finally +driven to tent life in a high, pure atmosphere as his only hope. He first +went to Asheville, North Carolina, and a little later to Lynn. But his +efforts to regain his health proved in vain; and on the 7th of September, +1881, the tragic struggle was brought to a close. + +The time has hardly come to give a final judgment as to Lanier's place in +American letters. He certainly deserves a place by the side of the very +best poets of the South, and perhaps, as many believe, by the side of the +greatest masters of American song. His genius had elements of originality +equaled only by Poe. He had the high moral purpose of the artist- +prophets; but his efforts after musical effects, as well as his untimely +death, prevented the full fruitage of his admirable genius. Many of the +poems that he has left us are lacking in spontaneity and artistic finish. +Alliterative effects are sometimes obtrusive. His poetic theories, as +presented in _The Science of English Verse_, often outstripped his +execution. But, after all these abatements are made, it remains true that +in a few pieces he has reached a trembling height of poetic and musical +rapture that is unsurpassed in the whole range of American poetry. + + + + +[Illustration: FATHER RYAN.] + +CHAPTER VI + +ABRAM J. RYAN + + +The poems of Abram J. Ryan, better known as Father Ryan, are unambitious. +The poet modestly wished to call them only verses; and, as he tells us, +they "were written at random,--off and on, here, there, anywhere,--just +as the mood came, with little of study and less of art, and always in a +hurry." His poems do not exhibit a painstaking, polished art. They are +largely emotional outpourings of a heart that readily found expression in +fluent, melodious lays. The poet-priest understood their character too +well to assign them a very high place in the realm of song; yet the wish +he expressed, that they might echo from heart to heart, has been +fulfilled in no small degree. In _Sentinel Songs_ he says:-- + + "I sing with a voice too low + To be heard beyond to-day, + In minor keys of my people's woe, + But my songs pass away. + + "To-morrow hears them not-- + To-morrow belongs to fame-- + My songs, like the birds', will be forgot, + And forgotten shall be my name. + + "And yet who knows? Betimes + The grandest songs depart, + While the gentle, humble, and low-toned rhymes + Will echo from heart to heart." + +But few facts are recorded of Father Ryan's life. The memoir and the +critique prefixed to the latest edition of his poems but poorly fulfill +their design. Besides the absence of detail, there is an evident lack of +taste and breadth of view. The poet's ecclesiastical relation is unduly +magnified; and the invidious comparisons made and the immoderate +laudation expressed are far from agreeable. But we are not left wholly at +a loss. With the few recorded facts of his life as guide, the poems of +Father Ryan become an interesting and instructive autobiography. He was a +spontaneous singer whose inspiration came, not from distant fields of +legend, history, science, but from his own experience; and it is not +difficult to read there a romance, or rather a tragedy, which imparts a +deep pathos to his life. His _interior_ life, as reflected in his +poems, is all of good report, in no point clashing with the moral +excellence befitting the priestly office. + +Abram J. Ryan was born in Norfolk, Virginia, August 15, 1839, whither his +parents, natives of Ireland, had immigrated not long before. He possessed +the quick sensibilities characteristic of the Celtic race; and his love +for Ireland is reflected in a stout martial lyric entitled _Erin's +Flag:_-- + + "Lift it up! lift it up! the old Banner of Green! + The blood of its sons has but brightened its sheen; + What though the tyrant has trampled it down, + Are its folds not emblazoned with deeds of renown?" + +When he was seven or eight years old, his parents removed to St. Louis. +He is said to have shown great aptitude in acquiring knowledge; and his +superior intellectual gifts, associated with an unusual reverence for +sacred things, early indicated the priesthood as his future vocation. In +the autobiographic poem, _Their Story Runneth Thus_, we have a +picture of his youthful character. With a warm heart, he had more than +the changefulness of the Celtic temperament. In his boyhood, as +throughout his maturity, he was strangely restless. As he says himself:-- + + "The boy was full of moods. + Upon his soul and face the dark and bright + Were strangely intermingled. Hours would pass + Rippling with his bright prattle--and then, hours + Would come and go, and never hear a word + Fall from his lips, and never see a smile + Upon his face. He was so like a cloud + With ever-changeful hues." + +When his preliminary training was ended, he entered the Roman Catholic +seminary at Niagara, New York. He was moved to the priesthood by a spirit +of deep consecration. The writer of his memoir dwells on the regret with +which he severed the ties binding him to home. No doubt he loved and +honored his parents. But there was a still stronger attachment, which, +broken by his call to the priesthood, filled all his subsequent life with +a consecrated sorrow. It was his love for Ethel:-- + + "A fair, sweet girl, with great, brown, wond'ring eyes + That seemed to listen just as if they held + The gift of hearing with the power of sight." + +The two lovers, forgetting the sacredness of true human affection, had, +with equal self-abnegation, resolved to give themselves to the church, +she as a nun and he as a priest. He has given a touching picture of their +last meeting:-- + + "One night in mid of May their faces met + As pure as all the stars that gazed on them. + They met to part from themselves and the world. + Their hearts just touched to separate and bleed; + Their eyes were linked in look, while saddest tears + Fell down, like rain, upon the cheeks of each: + They were to meet no more. Their hands were clasped + To tear the clasp in twain; and all the stars + Looked proudly down on them, while shadows knelt, + Or seemed to kneel, around them with the awe + Evoked from any heart by sacrifice. + And in the heart of that last parting hour + Eternity was beating. And he said: + 'We part to go to Calvary and to God-- + This is our garden of Gethsemane; + And here we bow our heads and breathe His prayer + Whose heart was bleeding, while the angels heard: + Not my will, Father! but Thine be done!'" + +The Roman Catholic training and faith of Father Ryan exerted a deep +influence upon his poetry. His ardent studies in the ancient languages +and in scholastic theology naturally withdrew his mind, to a greater or +less degree, from intimate communion with Nature. His poetry is +principally subjective. Nature enters it only in a subordinate way; its +forms and sounds and colors do not inspire in him the rapture found in +Hayne and Lanier. He not only treats of Scripture themes, as in _St. +Stephen_, _The Masters Voice_, and _A Christmas Chant_, but +he also finds subjects, not always happily, in distinctive Roman Catholic +dogma. _The Feast of the Assumption_ and _The Last of May_, +both in honor of the Virgin Mary, are sufficiently poetic; but _The +Feast of the Sacred Heart_ is, in parts, too prosaically literal in +its treatment of transubstantiation for any but the most believing and +devout of Roman Catholics. + +On the breaking out of the Civil War, Father Ryan entered the Confederate +army as a chaplain, though he sometimes served in the ranks. In 1863 he +ministered to the inmates of a prison in New Orleans during an epidemic +of smallpox. His martial songs, _The Sword of Robert Lee_, _The +Conquered Banner_, and _March of the Deathless Dead_, have been +dear to many Southern hearts. He reverenced Lee as a peerless leader. + + "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." + +After four years of brave, bitter sacrifice beneath the Confederate flag, +words like the following appealed strongly to the men and women who loved +_The Conquered Banner_:-- + + "Take that 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. + + "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." + +Father Ryan's devotion to the South was intense. He long refused to +accept the results of the war. The wrongs of the so-called Reconstruction +period aroused his ardent indignation, and found expression in his song. +In _The Land We Love_ he says, with evident reference to those +days:-- + + "Land where the victor's flag waves, + Where only the dead are the free! + Each link of the chain that enslaves, + But binds us to them and to thee." + +But during the epidemic of yellow fever in 1878, his heart was touched by +the splendid generosity of the North; and, surrendering his sectional +prejudice and animosity, he wrote _Reunited_:-- + + "Purer than thy own white snow, + Nobler than thy mountains' height; + Deeper than the ocean's flow, + Stronger than thy own proud might; + O Northland! to thy sister land, + Was late thy mercy's generous deed and grand." + +After the close of the Civil War, the restless temperament of the poet- +priest asserted itself in numerous changes of residence. He was +successively in Biloxi, Mississippi, Knoxville, Tennessee, and Augusta, +Georgia. In the latter place he published for some three years the +_Banner of the South_, a periodical that exerted no small influence +on the thought of the state. In 1870 he became pastor of St. Mary's +church in Mobile. Two years later he made a trip to Europe, of which we +find interesting reminiscences in his poems. His visit to Rome was the +realization of a long-cherished desire. He was honored with an audience +by Pope Pius IX, of whom he has given a graphic sketch:-- + + "I saw his face to-day; he looks a chief + Who fears nor human rage, nor human guile; + Upon his cheeks the twilight of a grief, + But in that grief the starlight of a smile. + Deep, gentle eyes, with drooping lids that tell + They are the homes where tears of sorrow dwell; + A low voice--strangely sweet--whose very tone + Tells how these lips speak oft with God alone." + +In Milan he was seriously ill. In his poem, _After Sickness_, we +find an expression of his world-weariness and his longing for death:-- + + "I nearly died, I almost touched the door + That swings between forever and no more; + I think I heard the awful hinges grate, + Hour after hour, while I did weary wait + Death's coming; but alas! 'twas all in vain: + The door half opened and then closed again." + +As a priest Father Ryan was faithful to his duties. But whether +ministering at the altar or making the rounds of his parish, his spirit +frequently found utterance in song. In 1880 he published a volume of +poems, to which only a few additions were subsequently made. The keynote +of his poetry is struck in the opening piece, _Song of the Mystic_. +He dwelt much in the "Valley of Silence." + + "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." + +The prevailing tone of Father Ryan's poems is one of sadness. His harp +rarely vibrated to cheerful strains. What was the cause of this sadness? +It may have been his keen sense of the tragic side of human life; it may +have been the enduring anguish that came from the crucified love of his +youth. The poet himself refused to tell. In _Lines--1875_, he says:-- + + "Go list to the voices of air, earth, and sea, + And the voices that sound in the sky; + Their songs may be joyful to some, but to me + There's a sigh in each chord and a sigh in each key, + And thousands of sighs swell their grand melody. + Ask them what ails them: they will not reply. + They sigh--sigh forever--but never tell why. + Why does your poetry sound like a sigh? + Their lips will not answer you; neither shall I." + +Yet, in spite of the prevailing tone of sorrow and weariness, Father Ryan +was no pessimist. He held that life has "more of sweet than gall"-- + + "For every one: no matter who-- + Or what their lot--or high or low; + All hearts have clouds--but heaven's blue + Wraps robes of bright around each woe; + And this is truest of the true: + + "That joy is stronger here than grief, + Fills more of life, far more of years, + And makes the reign of sorrow brief; + Gives more of smiles for less of tears. + Joy is life's tree--grief but its leaves." + +Father Ryan conceived of the poet's office as something seerlike or +prophetic. With him, as with all great poets, the message counted for +more than do rhythm and rhyme. Divorced from truth, art seemed to him but +a skeleton masque. He preferred those melodies that rise on the wings of +thought, and come to human hearts with an inspiration of faith and hope. +He regarded genuine poets as the high priests of Nature. Their sensitive +spirits, holding themselves aloof from common things, habitually dwell +upon the deeper mysteries of life in something of a morbid loneliness. In +_Poets_ he says:-- + + "They are all dreamers; in the day and night + Ever across their souls + The wondrous mystery of the dark or bright + In mystic rhythm rolls. + + "They live within themselves--they may not tell + What lieth deepest there; + Within their breast a heaven or a hell, + Joy or tormenting care. + + "They are the loneliest men that walk men's ways, + No matter what they seem; + The stars and sunlight of their nights and days + Move over them in dream." + +With Wordsworth, or rather with the great Apostle to the Gentiles, +he held that Nature is but the vesture of God, beneath which may be +discerned the divine glory and love. The visible seemed to him but an +expression of the invisible. + + "For God is everywhere--and he doth find + In every atom which His hand hath made + A shrine to hide His presence, and reveal + His name, love, power, to those who kneel + In holy faith upon this bright below, + And lift their eyes, thro' all this mystery, + To catch the vision of the great beyond." + +With this view of Nature, it was but natural that its sounds and forms-- +its birds and flowers--should inspire devotion. In _St. Mary's_, +speaking of the songs and silences of Nature, he says:-- + + "God comes close to me here-- + Back of ev'ry roseleaf there + He is hiding--and the air + Thrills with calls to holy prayer; + Earth grows far, and heaven near. + + "Every single flower is fraught + With the very sweetest dreams, + Under clouds or under gleams + Changeful ever--yet meseems + On each leaf I read God's thought." + +It can hardly be said that Father Ryan ever reaches far poetic heights. +Neither in thought nor expression does he often rise above cultured +commonplace. Fine artistic quality is supplanted by a sort of melodious +fluency. Yet the form and tone of his poetry, nearly always in one +pensive key, make a distinct impression, unlike that of any other +American singer. "Religious feeling," it has been well said, "is +dominant. The reader seems to be moving about in cathedral glooms, by +dimly lighted altars, with sad procession of ghostly penitents and +mourners fading into the darkness to the sad music of lamenting choirs. +But the light which falls upon the gloom is the light of heaven, and amid +tears and sighs, over farewells and crushed happiness, hope sings a +vigorous though subdued strain." Having once caught his distinctive note +of weary melancholy, we can recognize it among a chorus of a thousand +singers. It is to his honor that he has achieved a distinctive place in +American poetry. + +His poetic craftsmanship is far from perfect. His artistic sense did not +aspire to exquisite achievements. He delighted unduly in alliteration, +assonance, and rhyming effects, all which he sometimes carried to excess. +In the first stanza, for example, of _The Conquered Banner_, popular +as it is, the rhyme effect seems somewhat overdone:-- + + "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." + +Here and there, too, are unmistakable echoes of Poe, as in the following +stanza from _At Last:_-- + + "Into a temple vast and dim, + _Solemn and vast and dim_, + Just when the last sweet Vesper Hymn + Was floating far away, + With eyes that tabernacled tears-- + _Her heart the home of tears_-- + And cheeks wan with the woes of years, + A woman went one day." + +But in spite of these obvious defects, Father Ryan has been for years the +most popular of Southern poets. His poems have passed through many +editions, and there is still a large demand for them. They have something +that outweighs their faults, and appeals strongly to the popular mind and +heart. What is it? Perhaps it is impossible to answer this question +fully. But in addition to the merits already pointed out, the work of +Father Ryan is for the most part simple, spontaneous, and clear. It +generally consists of brief lyrics devoted to the expression of a single +mood or reflection. There is nothing in thought or style beyond the ready +comprehension of the average reader. It does not require, as does the +poetry of Browning, repeated and careful reading to render its meaning +clear. It does not offend sensible people with its empty, overdone +refinement. From beginning to end Father Ryan's poetry is a transparent +casket, into which he has poured the richest treasures of a deeply +sorrowing but noble Christian spirit. + +Again, the pensive, moral tone of his poetry renders it attractive to +many persons. He gives expression to the sad, reflective moods that are +apt, especially in time of suffering or disappointment, to come to most +of us. The moral sense of the American people is strong; and sometimes a +comforting though commonplace truth from Nature is more pleasing than the +most exquisite but superficial description of her beauties. How many have +found solace in poems like _A Thought:_-- + + "The waving rose, with every breath + Scents carelessly the summer air; + The wounded rose bleeds forth in death + A sweetness far more rich and rare. + + "It is a truth beyond our ken-- + And yet a truth that all may read-- + It is with roses as with men, + The sweetest hearts are those that bleed. + + "The flower which Bethlehem saw bloom + Out of a heart all full of grace, + Gave never forth its full perfume + Until the cross became its vase." + +Then again, the poet-priest, as was becoming his character, deals with +the mysteries of life. Much of our recent poetry is as trifling in theme +as it is polished in workmanship. But Father Ryan habitually brings +before us the profounder and sadder aspects of life. The truths of +religion, the vicissitudes of human destiny, the tragedy of death--these +are the themes in which he finds his inspiration, and to which we all +turn in our most serious moments. And though the strain in which he sings +is attuned to tears, it is still illumined by a strength-giving faith and +hope. When we feel weighed down with a sense of pitiless law, when fate +seems to cross our holiest aspirations with a ruthless hand, he bids us +be of good cheer. + + "There is no fate--God's love + Is law beneath each law, + And law all laws above + Fore'er, without a flaw." + +In 1883 Father Ryan, whose reputation had been established by his volume +of poems, undertook a lecturing tour through the North in the interest of +some charitable enterprise. At his best he was an eloquent speaker. But +during the later years of his life impaired health interfered with +prolonged mental effort. His mission had only a moderate degree of +success. His sense of weariness deepened, and his eyes turned longingly +to the life to come. In one of his later productions he said:-- + + "My feet are wearied, and my hands are tired, + My soul oppressed-- + And I desire, what I have long desired-- + Rest--only rest. + + * * * * * + + "And so I cry a weak and human cry, + So heart oppressed; + And so I sigh a weak and human sigh + For rest--for rest." + +At length, April 22, 1886, in a Franciscan monastery at Louisville, came +the rest for which he had prayed. And in that higher life to which he +passed, we may believe that he was welcomed by her to whom in youth he +had given the tender name of Ullainee, and for whom, through all the +years of a great sacrifice, his faithful heart had yearned with an +inextinguishable human longing. + + + + +ILLUSTRATIVE SELECTIONS WITH NOTES + + +SELECTION FROM FRANCIS SCOTT KEY + +THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER [1] + + O say, can you see, by the dawn's early light, + What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming, + Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight, + O'er the ramparts [2] we watched, were so gallantly streaming? + And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, + Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. + O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave + O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? + + On the shore dimly seen thro' the mists of the deep, + Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes, [3] + What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep, + As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses? + Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam, + In full glory reflected now shines on the stream; + 'Tis the star-spangled banner; O long may it wave + O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave! + + And where is that band who so vauntingly swore + That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion + A home and a country should leave us no more? [4] + Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution. + No refuge could save the hireling and slave + From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave; + And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave + O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. + + O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand + Between their loved homes and the war's desolation! + Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land + Praise the power that hath made and preserv'd us a nation! + Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, + And this be our motto--_"In God is our trust:"_ + And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave + O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. + +[Footnote 1: For a brief statement of the circumstances that gave rise to +the poem, see sketch of Key, page 12.] + +[Footnote 2: Fort McHenry, on the north bank of the Patapsco, below +Baltimore, was attacked by the British fleet, September 13, 1814.] + +[Footnote 3: The attack being unsuccessful, the British became +disheartened and withdrew.] + +[Footnote 4: Before the attack upon Baltimore, the British had taken +Washington and burned the capitol and other public buildings. + +With this poem may be compared other martial lyrics, such as Hopkinson's +_Hail Columbia_, Mrs. Howe's _Battle Hymn of the Republic_, +Campbell's _Ye Mariners of England_ and _Battle of the Baltic_, +Tennyson's _Charge of the Light Brigade_, etc.] + + + + * * * * * + + +SELECTIONS FROM RICHARD HENRY WILDE + +STANZAS [1] + + My life is like the summer rose, + That opens to the morning sky, + But, ere the shades of evening close, + Is scattered on the ground--to die![2] + Yet on the rose's humble bed + The sweetest dews of night are shed, + As if she wept the waste to see-- + But none shall weep a tear for me! + + My life is like the autumn leaf + That trembles in the moon's pale ray: + Its hold is frail--its date is brief, + Restless--and soon to pass away! + Yet, ere that leaf shall fall and fade, + The parent tree will mourn its shade, + The winds bewail the leafless tree-- + But none shall breathe a sigh for me! + + My life is like the prints, which feet + Have left on Tampa's [3] desert strand; + Soon as the rising tide shall beat, + All trace will vanish from the sand; + Yet, as if grieving to efface + All vestige of the human race, + On that lone shore loud moans the sea-- + But none, alas! shall mourn for me! + + + +A FAREWELL TO AMERICA [4] + + Farewell, my more than fatherland![5] + Home of my heart and friends, adieu! + Lingering beside some foreign strand, + How oft shall I remember you! + How often, o'er the waters blue, + Send back a sigh to those I leave, + The loving and beloved few, + Who grieve for me,--for whom I grieve! + + We part!--no matter how we part, + There are some thoughts we utter not, + Deep treasured in our inmost heart, + Never revealed, and ne'er forgot! + Why murmur at the common lot? + We part!--I speak not of the pain,-- + But when shall I each lovely spot, + And each loved face behold again? + It must be months,--it may be years,--[6] + It may--but no!--I will not fill + Fond hearts with gloom,--fond eyes with tears, + "Curious to shape uncertain ill." + Though humble,--few and far,--yet, still + Those hearts and eyes are ever dear; + Theirs is the love no time can chill, + The truth no chance or change can sear! + + All I have seen, and all I see, + Only endears them more and more; + Friends cool, hopes fade, and hours flee, + Affection lives when all is o'er! + Farewell, my more than native shore! + I do not seek or hope to find, + Roam where I will, what I deplore + To leave with them and thee behind! + +[Footnote 1: See sketch of Wilde, page 13. This song was translated into +Greek by Anthony Barclay and announced as a newly discovered ode by +Alcaeus. The trick, however, was soon detected by scholars, and the +author of the poem received a due meed of praise.] + +[Footnote 2: The brevity of life has been a favorite theme of poets ever +since Job (vii. 6) declared, "Our days are swifter than a weaver's +shuttle."] + +[Footnote 3: The reference seems to be to the shore about the Bay of +Tampa on the west coast of Florida.] + +[Footnote 4: See page 13.] + +[Footnote 5: It will be remembered that the poet was a native of +Ireland.] + +[Footnote 6: The years 1834-1840 were spent in Europe, chiefly in Italy. + +Compare with this Byron's farewell to England, in Canto I of _Childe +Harold_.] + + + + * * * * * + + +SELECTION FROM GEORGE D. PRENTICE + +THE CLOSING YEAR [1] + + 'Tis midnight's holy hour, and silence now + Is brooding like a gentle spirit o'er + The still and pulseless world. Hark! on the winds + The bell's deep tones are swelling,--'tis the knell + Of the departed year. + + No funeral train + Is sweeping past; yet on the stream and wood, + With melancholy light, the moonbeams rest + Like a pale, spotless shroud; the air is stirred, + As by a mourner's sigh; and on yon cloud + That floats so still and placidly through heaven, + The spirits of the seasons seem to stand-- + Young Spring, bright Summer, Autumn's solemn form, + And Winter with his aged locks--and breathe, + In mournful cadences that come abroad + Like the far wind-harp's wild and touching wail, + A melancholy dirge o'er the dead year, + Gone from the earth forever. + + 'Tis a time + For memory and for tears. Within the deep, + Still chambers of the heart a specter dim, + Whose tones are like the wizard voice of Time, + Heard from the tomb of ages, points its cold + And solemn finger to the beautiful + And holy visions that have passed away, + And left no shadow of their loveliness + On the dead waste of life. That specter lifts + The coffin lid of Hope, and Joy, and Love, + And, bending mournfully above the pale, + Sweet forms that slumber there, scatters dead flowers + O'er what has passed to nothingness. + + The year + Has gone, and with it many a glorious throng + Of happy dreams. Its mark is on each brow, + Its shadow in each heart. In its swift course + It waved its scepter o'er the beautiful,-- + And they are not. It laid its pallid hand + Upon the strong man,--and the haughty form + Is fallen, and the flashing eye is dim. + It trod the hall of revelry, where thronged + The bright and joyous, and the tearful wail + Of stricken ones is heard, where erst the song + And reckless shout resounded. It passed o'er + The battle plain, where sword, and spear, and shield + Flashed in the light of midday--and the strength + Of serried hosts is shivered, and the grass, + Green from the soil of carnage, waves above + The crushed and mouldering skeleton. It came + And faded like a wreath of mist at eve; + Yet, ere it melted in the viewless air, + It heralded its millions to their home + In the dim land of dreams. + + Remorseless Time! + Fierce spirit of the glass and scythe!--what power + Can stay him in his silent course, or melt + His iron heart to pity? On, still on + He presses, and forever. The proud bird, + The condor of the Andes, that can soar + Through heaven's unfathomable depths, or brave + The fury of the northern hurricane, + And bathe his plumage in the thunder's home, + Furls his broad wings at nightfall and sinks down + To rest upon his mountain crag--but Time + Knows not the weight of sleep or weariness, + And night's deep darkness has no chain to bind + His rushing pinions. Revolutions sweep + O'er earth, like troubled visions o'er the breast + Of dreaming sorrow,--cities rise and sink + Like bubbles on the water,--fiery isles + Spring blazing from the ocean, and go back + To their mysterious caverns,--mountains rear + To heaven their bald and blackened cliffs, and bow + Their tall heads to the plain,--new empires rise, + Gathering the strength of hoary centuries, + And rush down like the Alpine avalanche, + Startling the nations,--and the very stars, + Yon bright and burning blazonry of God, + Glitter a while in their eternal depths, + And, like the Pleiad, loveliest of their train, + Shoot from their glorious spheres, and pass away [2] + To darkle in the trackless void,--yet Time, + Time, the tomb-builder, holds his fierce career, + Dark, stern, all-pitiless, and pauses not + Amid the mighty wrecks that strew his path + To sit and muse, like other conquerors, + Upon the fearful ruin he has wrought. + +[Footnote 1: See sketch of Prentice, page 14. The flight of time is +another favorite theme with poets. _The Closing Year_ should be +compared with Bryant's _The Flood of Years_; similar in theme, the +two poems have much in common. The closing lines of Bryant's poem express +a sweet faith that relieves the somber tone of the preceding +reflections:-- + + "In the room + Of this grief-shadowed present, there shall be + A Present in whose reign no grief shall gnaw + The heart, and never shall a tender tie + Be broken; in whose reign the eternal Change + That waits on growth and action shall proceed + With everlasting Concord hand in hand."] + +[Footnote 2. This is a reference to the belief that one of the seven +stars originally supposed to form the Pleiades has disappeared. Such a +phenomenon is not unknown; modern astronomers record several such +disappearances. See Simms's _The Lost Pleiad_, following.] + + + + * * * * * + + +SELECTIONS FROM WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS + +THE LOST PLEIAD [1] + + Not in the sky, + Where it was seen + So long in eminence of light serene,-- + Nor on the white tops of the glistering wave, + Nor down in mansions of the hidden deep, + Though beautiful in green + And crystal, its great caves of mystery,-- + Shall the bright watcher have + Her place, and, as of old, high station keep! + + Gone! gone! + Oh! nevermore, to cheer + The mariner, who holds his course alone + On the Atlantic, through the weary night, + When the stars turn to watchers, and do sleep, + Shall it again appear, + With the sweet-loving certainty of light, + Down shining on the shut eyes of the deep! + + The upward-looking shepherd on the hills + Of Chaldea, night-returning with his flocks, + He wonders why her beauty doth not blaze, + Gladding his gaze,-- + And, from his dreary watch along the rocks, + Guiding him homeward o'er the perilous ways! + How stands he waiting still, in a sad maze, + Much wondering, while the drowsy silence fills + The sorrowful vault!--how lingers, in the hope that night + May yet renew the expected and sweet light, + So natural to his sight! [2] + + And lone, + Where, at the first, in smiling love she shone, + Brood the once happy circle of bright stars: + How should they dream, until her fate was known, + That they were ever confiscate to death? [3] + That dark oblivion the pure beauty mars, + And, like the earth, its common bloom and breath, + That they should fall from high; + Their lights grow blasted by a touch, and die, + All their concerted springs of harmony + Snapt rudely, and the generous music gone![4] + + Ah! still the strain + Of wailing sweetness fills the saddening sky; + The sister stars, lamenting in their pain + That one of the selected ones must die,-- + Must vanish, when most lovely, from the rest! + Alas! 'tis ever thus the destiny. + Even Rapture's song hath evermore a tone + Of wailing, as for bliss too quickly gone. + The hope most precious is the soonest lost, + The flower most sweet is first to feel the frost. + Are not all short-lived things the loveliest? + And, like the pale star, shooting down the sky, + Look they not ever brightest, as they fly + From the lone sphere they blest! + + + +THE SWAMP FOX [5] + We follow where the Swamp Fox guides, + His friends and merry men are we; + And when the troop of Tarleton [6] rides, + We burrow in the cypress tree. + The turfy hammock is our bed, + Our home is in the red deer's den, + Our roof, the tree-top overhead, + For we are wild and hunted men. + + We fly by day and shun its light, + But, prompt to strike the sudden blow, + We mount and start with early night, + And through the forest track our foe.[7] + And soon he hears our chargers leap, + The flashing saber blinds his eyes, + And ere he drives away his sleep, + And rushes from his camp, he dies. + + Free bridle bit, good gallant steed, + That will not ask a kind caress + To swim the Santee [8] at our need, + When on his heels the foemen press,-- + The true heart and the ready hand, + The spirit stubborn to be free, + The twisted bore, the smiting brand,-- + And we are Marion's men, you see. + + Now light the fire and cook the meal, + The last, perhaps, that we shall taste; + I hear the Swamp Fox round us steal, + And that's a sign we move in haste. + He whistles to the scouts, and hark! + You hear his order calm and low. + Come, wave your torch across the dark, + And let us see the boys that go. + + We may not see their forms again, + God help 'em, should they find the strife! + For they are strong and fearless men, + And make no coward terms for life; + They'll fight as long as Marion bids, + And when he speaks the word to shy, + Then, not till then, they turn their steeds, + Through thickening shade and swamp to fly. + + Now stir the fire and lie at ease,-- + The scouts are gone, and on the brush + I see the Colonel [9] bend his knees, + To take his slumbers too. But hush! + He's praying, comrades; 'tis not strange; + The man that's fighting day by day + May well, when night comes, take a change, + And down upon his knees to pray. + + Break up that hoecake, boys, and hand + The sly and silent jug that's there; + I love not it should idly stand + When Marion's men have need of cheer. + 'Tis seldom that our luck affords + A stuff like this we just have quaffed, + And dry potatoes on our boards + May always call for such a draught. + + Now pile the brush and roll the log; + Hard pillow, but a soldier's head + That's half the time in brake and bog + Must never think of softer bed. + The owl is hooting to the night, + The cooter [10] crawling o'er the bank, + And in that pond the flashing light + Tells where the alligator sank. + + What! 'tis the signal! start so soon, + And through the Santee swamp so deep, + Without the aid of friendly moon, + And we, Heaven help us! half asleep! + But courage, comrades! Marion leads, + The Swamp Fox takes us out to-night; + So clear your swords and spur your steeds, + There's goodly chance, I think, of fight. + + We follow where the Swamp Fox guides, + We leave the swamp and cypress tree, + Our spurs are in our coursers' sides, + And ready for the strife are we. + The Tory camp is now in sight, + And there he cowers within his den; + He hears our shouts, he dreads the fight, + He fears, and flies from Marion's men. + +[Footnote 1: See note above. There is a peculiar fitness in the reference +to the sea in this poem; for the constellation of the Pleiades was named +by the Greeks from their word _plein_, to sail, because the +Mediterranean was navigable with safety during the months these stars +were visible.] + +[Footnote 2: The poet seems to associate the Chaldean shepherd with the +Magi, who, as astrologers, observed the stars with profound interest. The +hope expressed for the return of the star cannot be regarded, in the +light of modern astronomy, as entirely fanciful. Only recently a new star +has flamed forth in the constellation Perseus.] + +[Footnote 3: The fixed stars, continually giving forth immeasurable +quantities of heat, are in a process of cooling. Sooner or later they +will become dark bodies. Astronomers tell us that there is reason to +believe that the dark bodies or burned-out suns of the universe are more +numerous than the bright ones, though the number of the latter exceeds +125 millions. The existence of such dark bodies has been established +beyond a reasonable doubt.] + +[Footnote 4: A reference to the old belief that the stars make music in +their courses. In Job (xxxviii. 7) we read: "When the morning stars sang +together." According to the Platonic philosophy, this music of the +spheres, too faint for mortal ears, was heard only by the gods. +Shakespeare has given beautiful expression to this belief:-- + + "There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st + But in his motion like an angel sings, + Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins; + Such harmony is in immortal souls; + But whilst this muddy vesture of decay + Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it." + --_Merchant of Venice_, Act V., Sc. 1.] + +[Footnote 5: See sketch of Simms, page 16. This poem is found in _The +Partisan_, the first of three novels descriptive of the Revolution. +Read a biographical sketch of General Francis Marion (1732-1795), whose +shrewdness in attack and escape earned for him the _sobriquet_ +"Swamp Fox."] + +[Footnote 6: Sir Banastre Tarleton (1754-1833) was a lieutenant colonel +in the army of Cornwallis. He was a brilliant and successful officer, but +was defeated by General Morgan in the battle of Cowpens in 1781.] + +[Footnote 7: "Sumter, Marion, and other South Carolina leaders found +places of refuge in the great swamps which are found in parts of the +state; and from these they kept up an active warfare with the British. +Their desperate battles, night marches, surprises, and hairbreadth +escapes make this the most exciting and interesting period of the +Revolution."--Johnston's _History of the United States_.] + +[Footnote 8: Marion's principal field of operations lay between the +Santee and Pedee rivers.] + +[Footnote 9: Marion held the rank of captain at the outbreak of the +Revolution, and was made lieutenant colonel for gallant conduct in the +defence of Fort Moultrie, June 28, 1776. Later he was made general.] + +[Footnote 10: A water tortoise or snapping turtle.] + +Compare Bryant's _Song of Marion's Men_. + + + + * * * * * + + +SELECTIONS FROM EDWARD COATE PINKNEY + +A HEALTH [1] + + 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 burdened bee + Forth issue from the rose. + + Affections are as thoughts to her,[2] + The measures of her hours; + Her feelings have the fragrancy, + 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. [3] + + + +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 draught, by after-times deplored, + Yet dear to memory. + + 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,[4] + Or that soft chain of spoken flowers + and airy gems,--thy words. + + + +VOTIVE SONG + + + I burn no incense, hang no wreath, + On this thine early tomb: + Such can not cheer the place of death, + But only mock its gloom. + Here odorous smoke and breathing flower + No grateful influence shed; + They lose their perfume and their power, + When offered to the dead. + + And if, as is the Afghaun's creed, + The spirit may return, + A disembodied sense to feed + On fragrance, near its urn,-- + It is enough that she, whom thou + Didst love in living years, + Sits desolate beside it now, + And fall these heavy tears. + +[Footnote 1: See sketch of Pinkney, page 18. The flowing or lilting +melody of this and the following songs is quite remarkable. It is +traceable to the skillful use of liquid consonants and short vowels, and +the avoidance of harsh consonant combinations.] + +[Footnote 2: The irregularities of this stanza are remarkable. The middle +rhyme used in the first and seventh lines of the other stanzas is here +lacking. It seems to have been an oversight on the part of the poet.] + +[Footnote 3: With this drinking song we may compare the well-known one of +Ben Jonson:-- + + "Drink to me only with thine eyes, + And I will pledge with mine; + Or leave a kiss but in the cup, + And I'll not look for wine. + The thirst that from the soul doth rise + Doth ask a drink divine; + But might I of Jove's nectar sup, + I would not change for thine. + + "I sent thee late a rosy wreath, + Not so much honoring thee + As giving it a hope that there + It could not withered be; + But thou thereon didst only breathe + And sent'st it back to me; + Since when it grows, and smells, I swear, + Not of itself, but thee."] + +[Footnote 4: This same simile occurs in a beautiful poem by Amelia C. +Welby (1819-1852), a Southern poet of no mean gifts, entitled _Twilight +at Sea_:-- + + "The twilight hours like birds flew by, + As lightly and as free; + Ten thousand stars were in the sky, + Ten thousand on the sea; + For every wave with dimpled face, + That leaped upon the air, + Had caught a star in its embrace, + And held it trembling there."] + + + + * * * * * + + +SELECTION FROM PHILIP PENDLETON COOKE + +FLORENCE VANE [1] + + I loved thee long and dearly, + Florence Vane; + My life's bright dream, and early, + Hath come again; + I renew, in my fond vision, + My heart's dear pain; + My hope, and thy derision, + Florence Vane. + + The ruin lone and hoary, + The ruin old, + Where thou didst hark my story, + At even told,-- + That spot--the hues Elysian + Of sky and plain-- + I treasure in my vision, + Florence Vane. + + Thou wast lovelier than the roses + In their prime; + Thy voice excelled the closes + Of sweetest rhyme; + Thy heart was as a river + Without a main. [2] + Would I had loved thee never, + Florence Vane. + + But fairest, coldest wonder! + Thy glorious clay + Lieth the green sod under-- + Alas the day! + And it boots not to remember + Thy disdain-- + To quicken love's pale ember, + Florence Vane. + + The lilies of the valley + By young graves weep, + The pansies love to dally + Where maidens sleep; + May their bloom, in beauty vying, + Never wane, + Where thine earthly part is lying, + Florence Vane! + +[Footnote 1: See sketch of Cooke, page 19. In the preface to the volume +from which this poem is taken, the author tells us that _Florence Vane +and Rosalie Lee_, another brief lyric, had "met with more favor than I +could ever perceive their just claim to." Hence he was kept from +"venturing upon the correction of some faults." _Rosalie Lee_ is +more than usually defective in meter and rhyme, but Florence Vane cannot +easily be improved.] + +[Footnote 2: "My meaning, I suppose," the poet wrote an inquiring friend, +"was that Florence did not want the capacity to love, but directed her +love to no object. Her passions went flowing like a lost river. Byron has +a kindred idea expressed by the same figure. Perhaps his verses were in +my mind when I wrote my own:-- + + 'She was the ocean to the river of his thoughts, + Which terminated all.'--_The Dream_. + +But no verse ought to require to be interpreted, and if I were composing +Florence Vane now, I would avoid the over concentrated expression in the +two lines, and make the idea clearer."--_Southern Literary +Messenger_, 1850, p. 370.] + + + + * * * * * + + +SELECTION FROM THEODORE O'HARA + +THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD [1] + + The muffled drum's sad roll has beat + The soldier's last tattoo: + No more op Life's parade shall meet + That brave and fallen few. + On Fame's eternal camping-ground + Their silent tents are spread, + And Glory guards, with solemn round, + The bivouac of the dead. + + No rumor of the foe's advance + Now swells upon the wind; + No troubled thought at midnight haunts + Of loved ones left behind; + No vision of the morrow's strife + The warrior's dream alarms; + No braying horn nor screaming fife + At dawn shall call to arms. + + Their shivered swords are red with rust, + Their plumed heads are bowed; + Their haughty banner, trailed in dust, + Is now their martial shroud. + And plenteous funeral tears have washed + The red stains from each brow, + And the proud forms, by battle gashed, + Are free from anguish now. + + The neighboring troop, the flashing blade, + The bugle's stirring blast, + The charge, the dreadful cannonade, + The din and shout, are past; + Nor war's wild note nor glory's peal + Shall thrill with fierce delight + Those breasts that nevermore may feel + The rapture of the fight. + + Like the fierce northern hurricane + That sweeps his great plateau, + Flushed with the triumph yet to gain, + Came down the serried foe. [2] + Who heard the thunder of the fray + Break o'er the field beneath, + Knew well the watchword of that day + Was "Victory or Death." + + Long had the doubtful conflict raged + O'er all that stricken plain, + For never fiercer fight had waged + The vengeful blood of Spain; [3] + And still the storm of battle blew, + Still swelled the gory tide; + Not long, our stout old chieftain knew, + Such odds his strength could bide. + + 'Twas in that hour his stern command + Called to a martyr's grave + The flower of his beloved land, + The nation's flag to save. + By rivers of their fathers' gore + His first-born laurels grew, [4] + And well he deemed the sons would pour + Their lives for glory too. + + Full many a norther's breath has swept + O'er Angostura's plain, [5] + And long the pitying sky has wept + Above its moldered slain. + The raven's scream, or eagle's flight, + Or shepherd's pensive lay, + Alone awakes each sullen height + That frowned o'er that dread fray. + + Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground, + Ye must not slumber there, + Where stranger steps and tongues resound + Along the heedless air. + Your own proud land's heroic soil + Shall be your fitter grave: + She claims from war his richest spoil-- + The ashes of her brave. + + Thus 'neath their parent turf they rest, + Far from the gory field, + Borne to a Spartan mother's breast + On many a bloody shield; [6] + The sunshine of their native sky + Smiles sadly on them here, + And kindred eyes and hearts watch by + The heroes' sepulcher. + + Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead! + Dear as the blood ye gave; + No impious footstep here shall tread + The herbage of your grave; + Nor shall your glory be forgot + While Fame her record keeps, + Or Honor points the hallowed spot + Where valor proudly sleeps. + + Yon marble minstrel's voiceless stone + In deathless song shall tell, + When many a vanished age hath flown, + The story how ye fell; + Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter's blight, + Nor Time's remorseless doom, + Shall dim one ray of glory's light + That gilds your deathless tomb. + +[Footnote 1: See sketch of O'Hara, page 21, for the occasion of this +poem.] + +[Footnote 2: The American force numbered 4769 men; the Mexican force +under Santa Anna, 21,000. The latter was confident of victory, and sent a +flag of truce to demand surrender. "You are surrounded by 20,000 men," +wrote the Mexican general, "and cannot, in any human probability, avoid +suffering a rout, and being cut to pieces with your troops." Gen. Taylor +replied, "I beg leave to say that I decline acceding to your request."] + +[Footnote 3: The battle raged for ten hours with varying success. There +was great determination on both sides, as is shown by the heavy losses. +The Americans lost 267 killed and 456 wounded; Santa Anna stated his loss +at 1500, which was probably an underestimate. He left 500 dead on the +field. The battle was a decisive one, and left northeastern Mexico in the +hands of the Americans.] + +[Footnote 4: The reference is to Zachary Taylor, who was in command of +the American forces. Though born in Virginia, he was brought up in +Kentucky, and won his first laurels in command of Kentuckians in the War +of 1812, during which he was engaged in fighting the Indian allies of +Great Britain. His victory at Buena Vista aroused great enthusiasm in the +United States, and more than any other event led to his election as +President.] + +[Footnote 5: The plateau on which the battle was fought, so called from +the mountain pass of Angostura (the narrows) leading to it from the +South.] + +[Footnote 6: Kentucky is here beautifully likened to a Spartan mother who +was accustomed to say, as she handed a shield to her son departing for +war, "Come back with this or upon this."] + + + + * * * * * + + +SELECTIONS FROM FRANCIS ORRERY TICKNOR + +THE VIRGINIANS OF THE VALLEY [1] + + 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 [2] round the land, + With Raleigh round the seas; + + 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 [3] keep, + Whose foes have found enchanted ground. + But not a knight asleep. + + + +LITTLE GIFFEN [4] + + Out of the focal and foremost fire, + Out of the hospital walls as dire; + Smitten of grape-shot and gangrene, + (Eighteenth battle [5] and _he_ sixteen!) + Specter! such as you seldom see, + Little Giffen, of Tennessee! + + "Take him and welcome!" the surgeons 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. [6] + + I sometimes fancy that, were I king + Of the princely Knights of the Golden Ring, [7] + 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. + +[Footnote 1: See sketch of Ticknor, page 22, for the occasion of this +poem. In this poem the exact meaning and sequence of thought do not +appear till after repeated readings.] + +[Footnote 2: Alexander Spotswood (1676-1740) was governor of Virginia +1710-1723. He led an exploring expedition across the Blue Ridge and took +possession of the Valley of Virginia "in the name of his Majesty King +George of England." On his return to Williamsburg he presented to each of +his companions a miniature golden horseshoe to be worn upon the breast. +Those who took part in the expedition, which was then regarded as a +formidable undertaking, were subsequently known as the "Knights of the +Golden Horseshoe."] + +[Footnote 3: "The Old Dominion" is a popular name for Virginia. Its +origin may be traced to acts of Parliament, in which it is designated as +"the colony and dominion of Virginia." In his _History of Virginia_ +(1629) Captain John Smith calls this colony and dominion _Old +Virginia_ in contradistinction to _New England_.] + +[Footnote 4: See page 23. Of this poem Maurice Thompson said: "If there +is a finer lyric than this in the whole realm of poetry, I should be glad +to read it."] + +[Footnote 5: Probably the battle of Murfreesboro, which opened December +31, 1862, and lasted three days. Union loss 14,000; Confederate, 11,000.] + +[Footnote 6: He was killed in some battle near Atlanta early in 1864.] + +[Footnote 7: A reference to King Arthur and the Knights of the Round +Table.] + +With this poem should be compared Browning's _Incident of the French Camp_. + + + + * * * * * + + +SELECTION FROM JOHN R. THOMPSON + +MUSIC IN CAMP [1] + + Two armies covered hill and plain, + Where Rappahannock's waters [2] + Ran deeply crimsoned with the stain + Of battle's recent slaughters. + + The summer clouds lay pitched like tents + In meads of heavenly azure; + And each dread gun of the elements + Slept in its hid embrasure. + + The breeze so softly blew, it made + No forest leaf to quiver, + And the smoke of the random cannonade + Rolled slowly from the river. + + And now, where circling hills looked down + With cannon grimly planted, + O'er listless camp and silent town + The golden sunset slanted. + + When on the fervid air there came + A strain--now rich, now tender; + The music seemed itself aflame + With day's departing splendor. + + A Federal band, which, eve and morn, + Played measures brave and nimble, + Had just struck up, with flute and horn + And lively clash of cymbal. + + Down flocked the soldiers to the banks, + Till, margined by its pebbles, + One wooded shore was blue with "Yanks," + And one was gray with "Rebels." + + Then all was still, and then the band, + With movement light and tricksy, + Made stream and forest, hill and strand, + Reverberate with "Dixie." + + The conscious stream with burnished glow + Went proudly o'er its pebbles, + But thrilled throughout its deepest flow + With yelling of the Rebels. + + Again a pause, and then again + The trumpets pealed sonorous, + And "Yankee Doodle" was the strain + To which the shore gave chorus. + + The laughing ripple shoreward flew, + To kiss the shining pebbles; + Loud shrieked the swarming Boys in Blue + Defiance to the Rebels. + + And yet once more the bugles sang + Above the stormy riot; + No shout upon the evening rang-- + There reigned a holy quiet. + + The sad, slow stream its noiseless flood + Poured o'er the glistening pebbles; + All silent now the Yankees stood, + And silent stood the Rebels. + + No unresponsive soul had heard + That plaintive note's appealing, + So deeply "Home, Sweet Home" had stirred + The hidden founts of feeling. + + Or Blue or Gray the soldier sees, + As by the wand of fairy, + The cottage 'neath the live-oak trees, + The cabin by the prairie. + + Or cold or warm, his native skies + Bend in their beauty o'er him; + Seen through the tear-mist in his eyes, + His loved ones stand before him. + + As fades the iris after rain + In April's tearful weather, + The vision vanished, as the strain + And daylight died together. + + And memory, waked by music's art, + Expressed in simplest numbers, + Subdued the sternest Yankee's heart, + Made light the Rebel's slumbers. + + And fair the form of music shines, + That bright celestial creature, + Who still, 'mid war's embattled lines, + Gave this one touch of Nature. + +[Footnote 1: See sketch of John R. Thompson, page 23.] + +[Footnote 2: The incident on which the poem is based may have occurred in +1862 or 1863. In both years the Union and Confederate forces occupied +opposite banks of the Rappahannock.] + + + + * * * * * + + +SELECTIONS FROM MRS. MARGARET J. PRESTON + +Grateful acknowledgment is here made to Dr. George J. Preston of +Baltimore, for permission to use the two following poems. + +A NOVEMBER NOCTURNE [1] + + The autumn air sweeps faint and chill + Across the maple-crested hill; + And on my ear + Falls, tingling clear, + A strange, mysterious, woodland thrill. + + From utmost twig, from scarlet crown + Untouched with yet a tinct of brown, + Reluctant, slow, + As loath to go, + The loosened leaves come wavering down; + + And not a hectic trembler there, + In its decadence, doomed to share + The fate of all,-- + But in its fall + Flings something sob-like on the air. + + No drift or dream of passing bell, + Dying afar in twilight dell, + Hath any heard, + Whose chimes have stirred + More yearning pathos of farewell. + + A silent shiver as of pain, + Goes quivering through each sapless vein; + And there are moans, + Whose undertones + Are sad as midnight autumn rain. + + Ah, if without its dirge-like sigh, + No lightest, clinging leaf can die,-- + Let him who saith + Decay and death + Should bring no heart-break, tell me why. + + Each graveyard gives the answer: there + I read _Resurgam_[2] everywhere, + So easy said + Above the dead-- + So weak to anodyne despair. + + + +CALLING THE ANGELS IN + + We mean to do it. Some day, some day, + We mean to slacken this feverish rush + That is wearing our very souls away, + And grant to our hearts a hush + That is only enough to let them hear + The footsteps of angels drawing near. + + We mean to do it. Oh, never doubt, + When the burden of daytime broil is o'er, + We'll sit and muse while the stars come out, + As the patriarchs sat in the door [3] + Of their tents with a heavenward-gazing eye, + To watch for angels passing by. + + We've seen them afar at high noontide, + When fiercely the world's hot flashings beat; + Yet never have bidden them turn aside, + To tarry in converse sweet; + Nor prayed them to hallow the cheer we spread, + To drink of our wine and break our bread. + + We promise our hearts that when the stress + Of the life work reaches the longed-for close, + When the weight that we groan with hinders less, + We'll welcome such calm repose + As banishes care's disturbing din, + And then--we'll call the angels in. + + The day that we dreamed of comes at length, + When tired of every mocking guest, + And broken in spirit and shorn of strength, + We drop at the door of rest, + And wait and watch as the day wanes on-- + But the angels we meant to call are gone! + +[Footnote 1: See sketch of Mrs. Preston, page 25. This and the following +poem are good examples of her poetic art, and exhibit, at the same time, +her reflective religious temperament.] + +[Footnote 2: _Resurgam_ (Latin), I shall rise again.] + +[Footnote 3: "And Abraham sat in the tent door in the heat of the day; +and he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him: +and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed +himself toward the ground, and said, My Lord, if now I have found favour +in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant."--_Genesis_ +xviii. 1-3.] + + + + * * * * * + + +SELECTIONS FROM EDGAR ALLAN POE + +TO HELEN [1] + + Helen, thy beauty is to me + Like those Nicaean [2] barks of yore, + That gently, o'er a perfumed sea, + The weary, wayworn wanderer bore + To his own native shore. + + On desperate seas long wont to roam, + Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, + Thy Naiad airs, have brought me home + To the glory that was Greece, + And the grandeur that was Rome.[3] + + Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche + How statue-like I see thee stand, + The agate lamp within thy hand! + Ah, Psyche, [4] from the regions which + Are Holy Land! [5] + + + +ANNABEL LEE [6] + + It was many and many a year ago, + In a kingdom by the sea, [7] + That a maiden there lived whom you may know + By the name of Annabel Lee; + And this maiden she lived with no other thought + Than to love and be loved by me. + + I was a child and she was a child, + In this kingdom by the sea: + But we loved with a love that was more than love, + I and my Annabel Lee; + With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven + Coveted her and me.[8] + + And this was the reason that, long ago, + In this kingdom by the sea, + A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling + My beautiful Annabel Lee; + So that her highborn kinsmen [9] came + And bore her away from me, + To shut her up in a sepulcher + In this kingdom by the sea. + + The angels, not half so happy in heaven, + Went envying her and me; + Yes!--that was the reason (as all men know, + In this kingdom by the sea) + That the wind came out of the cloud by night, + Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee. + + But our love it was stronger by far than the love + Of those who were older than we, + Of many far wiser than we; + And neither the angels in heaven above, + Nor the demons down under the sea, + Can ever dissever my soul from the soul + Of the beautiful Annabel Lee: + For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams + Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; + And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes + Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; + And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side [10] + Of my darling--my darling--my life and my bride, + In her sepulcher there by the sea, + In her tomb by the sounding sea. + + + +THE HAUNTED PALACE [11] + + In the greenest of our valleys + By good angels tenanted, + Once a fair and stately palace-- + Radiant palace--reared its head. + In the monarch Thought's dominion, + It stood there; + Never seraph spread a pinion + Over fabric half so fair. + + Banners yellow, glorious, golden, + On its roof did float and flow + (This--all this--was in the olden + Time long ago), + And every gentle air that dallied, + In that sweet day, + Along the ramparts plumed and pallid, + A winged odor went away. + Wanderers in that happy valley + Through two luminous windows saw + Spirits moving musically, + To a lute's well-tuned law, + Round about a throne where, sitting, + Porphyrogene, + In state his glory well befitting, + The ruler of the realm was seen. + + And all with pearl and ruby glowing + Was the fair palace door, + Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing, + And sparkling evermore, + A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty + Was but to sing, + In voices of surpassing beauty, + The wit and wisdom of their king. + + But evil things, in robes of sorrow, + Assailed the monarch's high estate; + (Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow + Shall dawn upon him desolate!) + And round about his home the glory + That blushed and bloomed, + Is but a dim-remembered story + Of the old time entombed. + + And travelers now within that valley + Through the red-litten windows see + Vast forms that move fantastically + To a discordant melody; + While like a ghastly rapid river, + Through the pale door + A hideous throng rush out forever, + And laugh--but smile no more. + + + +THE CONQUEROR WORM [12] + + Lo! 'tis a gala night + Within the lonesome latter years. + An angel throng, bewinged, bedight + In veils, and drowned in tears, + Sit in a theater to see + A play of hopes and fears, + While the orchestra breathes fitfully + The music of the spheres. + + Mimes, in the form of God on high, + Mutter and mumble low, + And hither and thither fly; + Mere puppets they, who come and go + At bidding of vast formless things + That shift the scenery to and fro, + Flapping from out their condor wings + Invisible woe. + + That motley drama--oh, be sure + It shall not be forgot! + With its Phantom chased for evermore + By a crowd that seize it not, + Through a circle that ever returneth in + To the self-same spot; + And much of Madness, and more of Sin, + And Horror the soul of the plot. + + But see amid the mimic rout + A crawling shape intrude: + A blood-red thing that writhes from out + The scenic solitude! + It writhes--it writhes!--with mortal pangs + The mimes become its food, + And seraphs sob at vermin fangs + In human gore imbued. + + Out--out are the lights--out all! + And over each quivering form + The curtain, a funeral pall, + Comes down with the rush of a storm, + While the angels, all pallid and wan, + Uprising, unveiling, affirm + That the play is the tragedy "Man," + And its hero the Conqueror Worm. + + + +THE RAVEN [13] + + Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, + Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,-- + While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, + As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. + "'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door-- + Only this and nothing more." + + Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December, + And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. + Eagerly I wished the morrow;--vainly I had sought to borrow + From my books surcease of sorrow--sorrow for the lost Lenore, + For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore: + Nameless here for evermore. + + And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain + Thrilled me--filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; + So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating + "'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door-- + Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door: + This it is and nothing more." + + Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer, + "Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore; + But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping, + And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, + That I scarce was sure I heard you"--here I opened wide the door;-- + Darkness there and nothing more. + + Deep into the darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, + Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before; + But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token, + And the only word there spoken was the whispered word "Lenore?" + This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word "Lenore:" + Merely this and nothing more. + + Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning, + Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before. + "Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice; + Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore-- + Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore: + 'Tis the wind and nothing more." + + Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, + In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore. + Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he; + But with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door-- + Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door: + Perched, and sat, and nothing more. + + Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, + By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,-- + "Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no + craven, + Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore: + Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!" + Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." + + Much I marveled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly, + Though its answer little meaning--little relevancy bore; + For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being + Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door-- + Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door, + With such name as "Nevermore." + + But the Raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only + That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour. + Nothing farther then he uttered; not a feather then he fluttered, + Till I scarcely more than muttered,--"Other friends have flown before; + On the morrow _he_ will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before." + Then the bird said, "Nevermore." + + Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, + "Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store, + Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster + Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore: + Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore + Of 'Never--nevermore.'" + + But the Raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling, + Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door; + Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking + Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore, + What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore-- + Meant in croaking "Nevermore." + + This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing + To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core; + This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining + On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o'er, + But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o'er + _She_ shall press, ah, nevermore! + + Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer + Swung by seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor. + "Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee--by these angels he hath + sent thee + Respite--respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore! + Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!" + Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." + + "Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil! prophet still, if bird or devil! + Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore, + Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted-- + On this home by Horror haunted--tell me truly, I implore: + Is there--_is_ there balm in Gilead?--tell me--tell me, I + implore!" + Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." + + "Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil--prophet still, if bird or devil! + By that heaven that bends above us--by that God we both adore: + Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, + It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore: + Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore!" + Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." + + "Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, + upstarting: + "Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore! + Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken! + Leave my loneliness unbroken! quit the bust above my door! + Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!" + Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." + + And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting + On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door; [14] + And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming, + And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;[15] + And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor + Shall be lifted--nevermore! + +For a general introduction to the selections from Poe, the biographical +and critical sketch in Chap. II should be read. + +[Footnote 1: This was Mrs. Helen Stannard, the mother of one of Poe's +schoolmates in Richmond. Her kind and gracious manner made a deep +impression on his boyish heart, and soothed his passionate, turbulent +nature. In after years this poem was inspired, as the poet tells us, by +the memory of "the one idolatrous and purely ideal love" of his restless +youth.] + +[Footnote 2: The reference seems to be to the ancient Ligurian town of +Nicaea, now Nice, in France. The "perfumed sea" would then be the +Ligurian sea. But one half suspects that it was the scholarly and musical +sound of the word, rather than any aptness of classical reference, that +led to the use of the word "Nicaean."] + +[Footnote 3: This appears to be Poe's indefinite and poetic way of saying +that the lady's beauty and grace brought him an uplifting sense of +happiness. After seeing her the first time, "He returned home in a dream, +with but one thought, one hope in life--to hear again the sweet and +gracious words that had made the desolate world so beautiful to him, and +filled his lonely heart with the oppression of a new joy."--Ingram's +_Edgar Allan Poe_, Vol. I, p. 32.] + +[Footnote 4: Psyche was represented as so exquisitely beautiful that +mortals did not dare to love, but only to worship her. The poet could pay +no higher tribute to "Helen."] + +[Footnote 5: This little poem--very beautiful in itself--illustrates +Poe's characteristics as a poet: it is indefinite, musical, and intense.] + +[Footnote 6: This poem is a tribute to his wife, to whom his beautiful +devotion has already been spoken of. "I believe," says Mrs. Osgood, "she +was the only woman whom he ever truly loved; and this is evidenced by the +exquisite pathos of the little poem lately written, called 'Annabel Lee,' +of which she was the subject, and which is by far the most natural, +simple, tender, and touchingly beautiful of all his songs."] + +[Footnote 7: This is Poe's poetic designation of America.] + +[Footnote 8: "Virginia Clemm, born on the 13th of August, 1822, was still +a child when her handsome cousin Edgar revisited Baltimore after his +escapade at West Point. A more than cousinly affection, which gradually +grew in intensity, resulted from their frequent communion, and +ultimately, whilst one, at least, of the two cousins was but a child, +they were married."--Ingram's _Edgar Allan Poe_, Vol. I, p. 136.] + +[Footnote 9: These were the angels, to whom "Annabel Lee" was akin in +sweet, gentle character. "A lady angelically beautiful in person, and not +less beautiful in spirit."--Captain Mayne Reid.] + +[Footnote 10: This may be literally true. At all events, it is related +that he visited the tomb of "Helen"; and "when the autumnal rains fell, +and the winds wailed mournfully over the graves, he lingered longest, and +came away most regretfully."] + +[Footnote 11: This admirable poem is an allegory. The "stately palace" is +a man who after a time loses his reason. With this fact in mind, the poem +becomes quite clear. The "banners yellow, glorious, golden" is the hair; +the "luminous windows" are the eyes; the "ruler of the realm" is reason; +"the fair palace door" is the mouth; and the "evil things" are the +madman's fantasies. The poem is found in _The Fall of the House of +Usher_. + +Poe claimed that Longfellow's _Beleaguered City_ was an imitation of +_The Haunted Palace_. The former should be read in connection with +the latter. Though some resemblance may be discerned, Longfellow must be +acquitted of Poe's charge of plagiarism.] + +[Footnote 12: This terrible lyric is also an allegory. The "theater" is +the world, and the "play" human life. The "mimes" are men, created in the +image of God, and are represented as the "mere puppets" of circumstance. +The "Phantom chased for evermore" is happiness; but for all, the end is +death and the grave.] + +[Footnote 13: This poem was first published in the New York _Evening +Mirror_, January 29, 1845. "In our opinion," wrote the editor, N. P. +Willis, "it is the most effective single example of 'fugitive poetry' +ever published in this country; and unsurpassed in English poetry for +subtle conception, masterly ingenuity of versification, and consistent +sustaining of imaginative lift." + +The story of _The Raven_ is given in prose by Poe in his +_Philosophy of Composition_, which contains the best analysis of its +structure: "A raven, having learned by rote the single word, 'Nevermore,' +and having escaped from the custody of its owner, is driven at midnight, +through the violence of a storm, to seek admission at a window from which +a light still gleams,--the chamber window of a student, occupied half in +poring over a volume, half in dreaming of a beloved mistress deceased. +The casement being thrown open at the fluttering of the bird's wings, the +bird itself perches on the most convenient seat out of the immediate +reach of the student, who, amused by the incident and the oddity of the +visitor's demeanor, demands of it, in jest and without looking for a +reply, its name. The raven addressed answers with its customary word, +'Nevermore'--a word which finds immediate echo in the melancholy heart +of the student, who, giving utterance aloud to certain thoughts suggested +by the occasion, is again startled by the fowl's repetition of +'Nevermore.' The student now guesses the state of the case, but is +impelled, by the human thirst for self-torture, and in part by +superstition, to propound such queries to the bird as will bring him, the +lover, the most of the luxury of sorrow, through the anticipated answer, +'Nevermore.'"] + +[Footnote 14: As Poe explains, the raven is "emblematical of mournful and +never-ending remembrance."] + +[Footnote 15: From the position of the bird it has been held that the +shadow could not possibly fall upon the floor. But the author says: +"_My_ conception was that of the bracket candelabrum affixed against +the wall, high up above the door and bust, as is often seen in the +English palaces, and even in some of the better houses in New York."] + + + * * * * * + +SELECTIONS FROM PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE + +For their generous permission to use _Aëthra, Under the Pines, Cloud +Pictures_, and _Lyric of Action_, the grateful acknowledgments of +the editor are due to The Lothrop Publishing Company, Boston, who hold +the copyright. + +THE WILL AND THE WING [1] + + To have the will to soar, but not the wings, + Eyes fixed forever on a starry height, + Whence stately shapes of grand imaginings + Flash down the splendors of imperial light; + + And yet to lack the charm [2] that makes them ours, + The obedient vassals of that conquering spell, + Whose omnipresent and ethereal powers + Encircle Heaven, nor fear to enter Hell; + + This is the doom of Tantalus [3]--the thirst + For beauty's balmy fount to quench the fires + Of the wild passion that our souls have nurst + In hopeless promptings--unfulfilled desires. + + Yet would I rather in the outward state + Of Song's immortal temple lay me down, + A beggar basking by that radiant gate, [4] + Than bend beneath the haughtiest empire's crown! + + For sometimes, through the bars, my ravished eyes + Have caught brief glimpses of a life divine, + And seen a far, mysterious rapture rise + Beyond the veil [5] that guards the inmost shrine. + + + +MY STUDY [6] + + This is my world! within these narrow walls, + I own a princely service;[7] the hot care + And tumult of our frenzied life are here + But as a ghost and echo; what befalls + In the far mart to me is less than naught; + I walk the fields of quiet Arcadies,[8] + And wander by the brink of hoary seas, + Calmed to the tendance of untroubled thought; + Or if a livelier humor should enhance + The slow-time pulse, 'tis not for present strife, + The sordid zeal with which our age is rife, + Its mammon conflicts crowned by fraud or chance, + But gleamings of the lost, heroic life, + Flashed through the gorgeous vistas of romance. + + + +AËTHRA [9] + + It is a sweet tradition, with a soul + Of tenderest pathos! Hearken, love!--for all + The sacred undercurrents of the heart + Thrill to its cordial music: + Once a chief, + Philantus, king of Sparta, left the stern + And bleak defiles of his unfruitful land-- + Girt by a band of eager colonists-- + To seek new homes on fair Italian plains.[10] + Apollo's [11] oracle had darkly spoken: + _"Where'er from cloudless skies a plenteous shower + Outpours, the Fates decree that ye should pause + And rear your household deities!"_ + Racked by doubt + Philantus traversed--with his faithful band + Full many a bounteous realm; but still defeat + Darkened his banners, and the strong-walled towns + His desperate sieges grimly laughed to scorn! + Weighed down by anxious thoughts, one sultry eve + The warrior--his rude helmet cast aside-- + Rested his weary head upon the lap + Of his fair wife, who loved him tenderly; + And there he drank a generous draught of sleep. + She, gazing on his brow, all worn with toil, + And his dark locks, which pain had silvered over + With glistening touches of a frosty rime, + Wept on the sudden bitterly; her tears + Fell on his face, and, wondering, he woke. + "O blest art thou, my Aëthra, _my clear sky_." + He cried exultant, "from whose pitying blue + A heart-rain falls to fertilize my fate: + Lo! the deep riddle's solved--the gods spake truth!" + + So the next night he stormed Tarentum,[12] took + The enemy's host at vantage, and o'erthrew + His mightiest captains. Thence with kindly sway + He ruled those pleasant regions he had won,-- + But dearer even than his rich demesnes + The love of her whose gentle tears unlocked + The close-shut mystery of the Oracle! + + + +UNDER THE PINE [13] + +_To the memory of Henry Timrod_ + + The same majestic pine is lifted high + Against the twilight sky, + The same low, melancholy music grieves + Amid the topmost leaves,[14] + As when I watched, and mused, and dreamed with him, + Beneath these shadows dim. + + O Tree! hast thou no memory at thy core + Of one who comes no more? + No yearning memory of those scenes that were + So richly calm and fair, + When the last rays of sunset, shimmering down, + Flashed like a royal crown? + + And he, with hand outstretched and eyes ablaze, + Looked forth with burning [15] gaze, + And seemed to drink the sunset like strong wine, + Or, hushed in trance divine, + Hailed the first shy and timorous glance from far + Of evening's virgin star? + + O Tree! against thy mighty trunk he laid + His weary head; thy shade + Stole o'er him like the first cool spell of sleep: + It brought a peace _so_ deep + The unquiet passion died from out his eyes, + As lightning from stilled skies. + + And in that calm he loved to rest, and hear + The soft wind-angels, clear + And sweet, among the uppermost branches sighing: + Voices he heard replying + (Or so he dreamed) far up the mystic height, + And pinions rustling light. + + O Tree! have not his poet-touch, his dreams + So full of heavenly gleams, + Wrought through the folded dullness of thy bark, + And all thy nature dark + Stirred to slow throbbings, and the fluttering fire + Of faint, unknown desire? + + At least to me there sweeps no rugged ring + That girds the forest king, + No immemorial stain, or awful rent + (The mark of tempest spent), + No delicate leaf, no lithe bough, vine-o'ergrown, + No distant, flickering cone, + + But speaks of him, and seems to bring once more + The joy, the love of yore; + But most when breathed from out the sunset-land + The sunset airs are bland, + That blow between the twilight and the night, + Ere yet the stars are bright; + + For then that quiet eve comes back to me, + When deeply, thrillingly, + He spake of lofty hopes which vanquish Death; + And on his mortal breath + A language of immortal meanings hung, + That fired his heart and tongue. + + For then unearthly breezes stir and sigh, + Murmuring, "Look up! 'tis I: + Thy friend is near thee! Ah, thou canst not see!" + And through the sacred tree + Passes what seems a wild and sentient thrill-- + Passes, and all is still!-- + + Still as the grave which holds his tranquil form, + Hushed after many a storm,-- + Still as the calm that crowns his marble brow, + No pain can wrinkle now,-- + Still as the peace--pathetic peace of God-- + That wraps the holy sod, + + Where every flower from our dead minstrel's dust + Should bloom, a type of trust,-- + That faith which waxed to wings of heavenward might + To bear his soul from night,-- + That faith, dear Christ! whereby we pray to meet + His spirit at God's feet! + + + +CLOUD PICTURES [16] + + Here in these mellow grasses, the whole morn, + I love to rest; yonder, the ripening corn + Rustles its greenery; and his blithesome horn + + Windeth the frolic breeze o'er field and dell, + Now pealing a bold stave with lusty swell, + Now falling to low breaths ineffable + + Of whispered joyance. At calm length I lie, + Fronting the broad blue spaces of the sky, + Covered with cloud-groups, softly journeying by: + + An hundred shapes, fantastic, beauteous, strange, + Are theirs, as o'er yon airy waves they range + At the wind's will, from marvelous change to change; + + Castles, with guarded roof, and turret tall, + Great sloping archway, and majestic wall, + Sapped by the breezes to their noiseless fall! + + Pagodas vague! above whose towers outstream + Banners that wave with motions of a dream-- + Rising, or drooping in the noontide gleam; + + Gray lines of Orient pilgrims: a gaunt band + On famished camels, o'er the desert sand + Plodding towards their prophet's Holy Land; + + Mid-ocean,--and a shoal of whales at play, + Lifting their monstrous frontlets to the day, + Thro' rainbow arches of sun-smitten spray; + + Followed by splintered icebergs, vast and lone, + Set in swift currents of some arctic zone, + Like fragments of a Titan's world o'erthrown; + + Next, measureless breadths of barren, treeless moor, + Whose vaporous verge fades down a glimmering shore, + Round which the foam-capped billows toss and roar! + + Calms of bright water--like a fairy's wiles, + Wooing with ripply cadence and soft smiles, + The golden shore-slopes of Hesperian Isles; + + Their inland plains rife with a rare increase + Of plumèd grain! and many a snowy fleece + Shining athwart the dew-lit hills of peace; + + Wrecks of gigantic cities--to the tune + Of some wise air-god built!--o'er which the noon + Seems shuddering; caverns, such as the wan Moon + + Shows in her desolate bosom; then, a crowd + Of awed and reverent faces, palely bowed + O'er a dead queen, laid in her ashy shroud-- + + A queen of eld--her pallid brow impearled + By gems barbaric! her strange beauty furled + In mystic cerements of the antique world. + + Weird pictures, fancy-gendered!--one by one, + 'Twixt blended beams and shadows, gold and dun, + These transient visions vanish in the sun. + + + +LYRIC OF ACTION [17] + + 'Tis the part of a coward to brood + O'er the past that is withered and dead: + What though the heart's roses are ashes and dust? + What though the heart's music be fled? + Still shine the grand heavens o'erhead, + Whence the voice of an angel thrills clear on the soul, + "Gird about thee thine armor, press on to the goal!" + + If the faults or the crimes of thy youth + Are a burden too heavy to bear, + What hope can re-bloom on the desolate waste + Of a jealous and craven despair? + Down, down with the fetters of fear! + In the strength of thy valor and manhood arise, + With the faith that illumes and the will that defies. + + "_Too late!_" through God's infinite world, + From his throne to life's nethermost fires, + "_Too late!_" is a phantom that flies at the dawn + Of the soul that repents and aspires. + If pure thou hast made thy desires, + There's no height the strong wings of immortals may gain + Which in striving to reach thou shalt strive for in vain. + + Then, up to the contest with fate, + Unbound by the past, which is dead! + What though the heart's roses are ashes and dust? + What though the heart's music be fled? + Still shine the fair heavens o'erhead; + And sublime as the seraph [18] who rules in the sun + Beams the promise of joy when the conflict is won! + + +For a general introduction to the following poems, see Chapter III. The +selections are intended to exhibit the poet's various moods and themes. + +[Footnote 1: This poem, which appeared in the volume of 1855 under the +title _Aspirations_, gives expression to a strong literary impulse. +It was genuine in sentiment, and its aspiring spirit and forceful +utterance gave promise of no ordinary achievement.] + +[Footnote 2: An act or formula supposed to exert a magical influence or +power. + + "Then, in one moment, she put forth the charm + Of woven paces and of waving hands." + --Tennyson's _Merlin and Vivien_. + +Compare the first scene in _Faust_ where the Earth-spirit comes in +obedience to a "conquering spell."] + +[Footnote 3: Tantalus was a character of Greek mythology, who, for +divulging the secret counsels of Zeus, was afflicted in the lower world +with an insatiable thirst. He stood up to the chin in a lake, the waters +of which receded whenever he tried to drink of them.] + +[Footnote 4: The poet evidently had in mind the lame man who was "laid +daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful."--_Acts_ +iii. 2.] + +[Footnote 5: A reference to the veil that hung before the Most Holy +Place, or "inmost shrine," of the temple. Compare _Exodus_ xxvi. 33.] + +[Footnote 6: This sonnet, which appeared in the volume of 1859, reveals +the retiring, meditative temper of the poet. To him quiet reflection was +more than action. He loved to dwell in spirit with the good and great of +the past. The rude struggles of the market-place for wealth and power +were repugnant to his refined and sensitive nature.] + +[Footnote 7: Something served for the refreshment of a person; here an +intellectual feast fit for a prince.] + +[Footnote 8: Arcady, or Arcadia, is a place of ideal simplicity and +contentment; so called from a picturesque district in Greece, which was +noted for the simplicity and happiness of its people.] + +[Footnote 9: This poem will serve to illustrate Hayne's skill in the use +of blank verse. It is a piece of rare excellence and beauty. The name of +the heroine is pronounced _Ee-thra_.] + +[Footnote 10: This migration occurred about 708 B.C.] + +[Footnote 11: Apollo was one of the major deities of Grecian mythology. +He was regarded, among other things, as the god of song or minstrelsy, +and also as the god of prophetic inspiration. The most celebrated oracle +of Apollo was at Delphi.] + +[Footnote 12: A town in southern Italy, now Taranto. It was in ancient +times a place of great commercial importance.] + +[Footnote 13: For the occasion of this poem, see page 61. The poet had a +peculiar fondness for the pine, which in one of his poems he calls-- + + "My sylvan darling! set 'twixt shade and sheen, + Soft as a maid, yet stately as a queen!" + +It is the subject of a half-dozen poems,--_The Voice of the Pines, +Aspect of the Pines, In the Pine Barrens, The Dryad of the Pine, The +Pine's Mystery_, and _The Axe and the Pine_,--all of them in his +happiest vein.] + +[Footnote 14: In _The Pine's Mystery_ we read:-- + + "Passion and mystery murmur through the leaves, + Passion and mystery, touched by deathless pain, + Whose monotone of long, low anguish grieves + For something lost that shall not live again."] + +[Footnote 15: Hayne's very careful workmanship is rarely at fault; but +here there seems to be an infelicitous epithet that amounts to a sort of +tautology. "Eyes ablaze" would necessarily "look forth with _burning +gaze_."] + +[Footnote 16: This poem illustrates the poet's method of dealing with +Nature. He depicts its beauty as discerned by the artistic imagination. +He is less concerned with the messages of Nature than with its lovely +forms. This poem, in its felicitous word-painting, reminds us of +Tennyson, though it would be difficult to find in the English poet so +brilliant a succession of masterly descriptions. + +With this poem may be compared Hayne's _Cloud Fantasies_, a sonnet +that brings before us, with great vividness, the somber appearance of the +clouds in autumn. See also _A Phantom in the Clouds_. No other of +our poets has dwelt so frequently and so delightfully on the changing +aspects of the sky. + +Compare Shelley's _The Cloud_.] + +[Footnote 17: It is not often that Hayne assumed the hortatory tone found +in this poem. In artistic temperament he was akin to Keats rather than to +Longfellow. Even in his didactic poems, he is meditative and descriptive +rather than hortatory. The artist in him hardly ever gave place to the +preacher.] + +[Footnote 18: The seraph's name was Uriel, that is, God's Light. In +_Revelation_ (xix. 17) we read, "And I saw an angel standing in the +sun." Milton calls him-- + + "The Archangel Uriel--one of the seven + Who in God's presence, nearest to his throne, + Stand ready at command." + --_Paradise Lost_, Book III, 648-650.] + + + * * * * * + +SELECTIONS FROM HARRY TIMROD + +TOO LONG, O SPIRIT OF STORM [1] + + Too long, O Spirit of storm, + Thy lightning sleeps in its sheath! + I am sick to the soul of yon pallid sky, + And the moveless sea beneath. + + Come down in thy strength on the deep! + Worse dangers there are in life, + When the waves are still, and the skies look fair, + Than in their wildest strife. + + A friend I knew, whose days + Were as calm as this sky overhead; + But one blue morn that was fairest of all, + The heart in his bosom fell dead. + + And they thought him alive while he walked + The streets that he walked in youth-- + Ah! little they guessed the seeming man + Was a soulless corpse in sooth. + + Come down in thy strength, O Storm! + And lash the deep till it raves! + I am sick to the soul of that quiet sea, + Which hides ten thousand graves. + + + +A CRY TO ARMS [2] + + Ho! woodsmen of the mountain side! + Ho! dwellers in the vales! + Ho! ye who by the chafing tide + Have roughened in the gales! + Leave barn and byre,[3] leave kin and cot, + Lay by the bloodless spade; + Let desk, and case, and counter rot, + And burn your books of trade. + + The despot roves your fairest lands; + And till he flies or fears, + Your fields must grow but armèd bands, + Your sheaves be sheaves of spears! + Give up to mildew and to rust + The useless tools of gain; + And feed your country's sacred dust + With floods of crimson rain! + + Come, with the weapons at your call-- + With musket, pike, or knife; + He wields the deadliest blade of all + Who lightest holds his life. + The arm that drives its unbought blows + With all a patriot's scorn, + Might brain a tyrant with a rose, + Or stab him with a thorn. + + Does any falter? let him turn + To some brave maiden's eyes, + And catch the holy fires that burn + In those sublunar skies. + Oh! could you like your women feel, + And in their spirit march, + A day might see your lines of steel + Beneath the victor's arch. + + What hope, O God! would not grow warm + When thoughts like these give cheer? + The Lily calmly braves the storm, + And shall the Palm Tree fear? + No! rather let its branches court + The rack [4] that sweeps the plain; + And from the Lily's regal port + Learn how to breast the strain! + + Ho! woodsmen of the mountain side! + Ho! dwellers in the vales! + Ho! ye who by the roaring tide + Have roughened in the gales! + Come! flocking gayly to the fight, + From forest, hill, and lake; + We battle for our Country's right, + And for the Lily's sake! + + + +ODE [5] + +I + + Sleep sweetly in your humble graves, + Sleep, martyrs of a fallen cause; + Though yet no marble column craves + The pilgrim here to pause. + +II + + In seeds of laurel in the earth + The blossom of your fame is blown, + And somewhere, waiting for its birth, + The shaft is in the stone![6] + +III + + Meanwhile, behalf [7] the tardy years + Which keep in trust your storied tombs, + Behold! your sisters bring their tears, + And these memorial blooms. + +IV + + Small tributes! but your shades will smile + More proudly on these wreaths to-day, + Than when some cannon-molded pile [8] + Shall overlook this bay. + +V + + Stoop, angels, hither from the skies! + There is no holier spot of ground + Than where defeated valor lies, + By mourning beauty crowned. + + + +FLOWER-LIFE [9] + + I think that, next to your sweet eyes, + And pleasant books, and starry skies, + I love the world of flowers; + Less for their beauty of a day, + Than for the tender things they say, + And for a creed I've held alway, + That they are sentient powers.[10] + + It may be matter for a smile-- + And I laugh secretly the while + I speak the fancy out-- + But that they love, and that they woo, + And that they often marry too, + And do as noisier creatures do, + I've not the faintest doubt. + + And so, I cannot deem it right + To take them from the glad sunlight, + As I have sometimes dared; + Though not without an anxious sigh + Lest this should break some gentle tie, + Some covenant of friendship, I + Had better far have spared. + + And when, in wild or thoughtless hours, + My hand hath crushed the tiniest flowers, + I ne'er could shut from sight + The corpses of the tender things, + With other drear imaginings, + And little angel-flowers with wings + Would haunt me through the night. + + Oh! say you, friend, the creed is fraught + With sad, and even with painful thought, + Nor could you bear to know + That such capacities belong + To creatures helpless against wrong, + At once too weak to fly the strong + Or front the feeblest foe? + + So be it always, then, with you; + So be it--whether false or true-- + I press my faith on none; + If other fancies please you more, + The flowers shall blossom as before, + Dear as the Sibyl-leaves [11] of yore, + But senseless every one. + + Yet, though I give you no reply, + It were not hard to justify + My creed to partial ears; + But, conscious of the cruel part, + My rhymes would flow with faltering art, + I could not plead against your heart, + Nor reason with your tears. + + + +SONNET [12] + + Poet! if on a lasting fame be bent + Thy unperturbing hopes, thou wilt not roam + Too far from thine own happy heart and home; + Cling to the lowly earth and be content! + + So shall thy name be dear to many a heart; + So shall the noblest truths by thee be taught; + The flower and fruit of wholesome human thought + Bless the sweet labors of thy gentle art. + + The brightest stars are nearest to the earth, + And we may track the mighty sun above, + Even by the shadow of a slender flower. + Always, O bard, humility is power! + And thou mayest draw from matters of the hearth + Truths wide as nations, and as deep as love. + + + +SONNET [13] + + Most men know love but as a part of life;[14] + They hide it in some corner of the breast, + Even from themselves; and only when they rest + In the brief pauses of that daily strife, + + Wherewith the world might else be not so rife, + They draw it forth (as one draws forth a toy + To soothe some ardent, kiss-exacting boy) + And hold it up to sister, child, or wife. + + Ah me! why may not love and life be one?[15] + Why walk we thus alone, when by our side, + Love, like a visible God, might be our guide? + How would the marts grow noble! and the street, + Worn like a dungeon floor by weary feet, + Seem then a golden court-way of the Sun! + + + +THE SUMMER BOWER [16] + + It is a place whither I have often gone + For peace, and found it, secret, hushed, and cool, + A beautiful recess in neighboring woods. + Trees of the soberest hues, thick-leaved and tall. + Arch it o'erhead and column it around, + Framing a covert, natural and wild, + Domelike and dim; though nowhere so enclosed + But that the gentlest breezes reach the spot + Unwearied and unweakened. Sound is here + A transient and unfrequent visitor; + Yet, if the day be calm, not often then, + Whilst the high pines in one another's arms + Sleep, you may sometimes with unstartled ear + Catch the far fall of voices, how remote + You know not, and you do not care to know. + The turf is soft and green, but not a flower + Lights the recess, save one, star-shaped and bright-- + I do not know its name--which here and there + Gleams like a sapphire set in emerald. + A narrow opening in the branchèd roof, + A single one, is large enough to show, + With that half glimpse a dreamer loves so much, + The blue air and the blessing of the sky. + Thither I always bent my idle steps, + When griefs depressed, or joys disturbed my heart, + And found the calm I looked for, or returned + Strong with the quiet rapture in my soul.[17] + But one day, + One of those July days when winds have fled + One knows not whither, I, most sick in mind + With thoughts that shall be nameless, yet, no doubt, + Wrong, or at least unhealthful, since though dark + With gloom, and touched with discontent, they had + No adequate excuse, nor cause, nor end, + I, with these thoughts, and on this summer day, + Entered the accustomed haunt, and found for once + No medicinal virtue. + Not a leaf + Stirred with the whispering welcome which I sought, + But in a close and humid atmosphere, + Every fair plant and implicated bough + Hung lax and lifeless. Something in the place, + Its utter stillness, the unusual heat, + And some more secret influence, I thought, + Weighed on the sense like sin. Above I saw, + Though not a cloud was visible in heaven, + The pallid sky look through a glazèd mist + Like a blue eye in death. + The change, perhaps, + Was natural enough; my jaundiced sight, + The weather, and the time explain it all: + Yet have I drawn a lesson from the spot, + And shrined it in these verses for my heart. + Thenceforth those tranquil precincts I have sought + Not less, and in all shades of various moods; + But always shun to desecrate the spot + By vain repinings, sickly sentiments, + Or inconclusive sorrows. Nature, though + Pure as she was in Eden when her breath + Kissed the white brow of Eve, doth not refuse, + In her own way and with a just reserve, + To sympathize with human suffering;[18] + But for the pains, the fever, and the fret + Engendered of a weak, unquiet heart, + She hath no solace; and who seeks her when + These be the troubles over which he moans, + Reads in her unreplying lineaments + Rebukes, that, to the guilty consciousness, + Strike like contempt. + +For a general introduction to the following selections, see Chapter IV. +The poet's verse is perfectly clear. He prefers to + + "Cling to the lowly and be content." + +[Footnote 1: This poem, which first appeared in _Russell's Magazine_, +exhibits one of Timrod's characteristics: he does not describe Nature for +its own sake, as Hayne often does, but for the sake of some truth or +lesson in relation to man. The lesson of this poem is that a life of +uninterrupted ease and comfort is not favorable to the development of +noble character.] + +[Footnote 2: This selection illustrates the fierce energy of the poet's +martial lyrics. Compare _Bannockburn_ by Burns, which Carlyle said +"should be sung with the throat of the whirlwind."] + +[Footnote 3: _Byre_ is a cow-stable.] + +[Footnote 4: _Rack_, usually _wrack_, signifies ruin or +destruction.] + +[Footnote 5: This lyric, which was sung on the occasion of decorating the +graves of the Confederate dead in Magnolia Cemetery, Charleston, South +Carolina, in 1867, has been much admired, especially the last stanza.] + +[Footnote 6: It is interesting to know that this prediction has been +fulfilled. A monument of granite now stands above the dead.] + +[Footnote 7: _Behalf_, instead of _in behalf of_, is a rather +hazardous construction.] + +[Footnote 8: A noble bronze figure of a color bearer on a granite +pedestal now commemorates the fallen heroes.] + +[Footnote 9: This poem first appeared in the _Southern Literary Messenger_ +in 1851. The first stanza of this half-playful, half-serious piece, +mentions the objects in which the poet most delighted.] + +[Footnote 10: This belief has been frequently held, and has some support +from recent scientific experiments. But that this sentiency goes as far +as the poet describes, is of course pure fancy.] + +[Footnote 11: The sibyls (Sybil is an incorrect form) were, according to +ancient mythology, prophetic women. The sibylline leaves or books +contained their teachings, and were preserved with the utmost care in +Rome. The sibyl of Cumae conducted Aeneas through the under world, as +narrated in the sixth book of Virgil's _Aeneid_.] + +[Footnote 12: This sonnet expresses the poet's creed, to which his +practice was confirmed. This fact imparts unusual simplicity to his +verse--a simplicity that strikes us all the more at the present time, +when an over-refinement of thought and expression is in vogue.] + +[Footnote 13: This sonnet, on the commonest of all poetic themes, treats +of love in a deep, serious way. It is removed as far as possible from the +sentimental.] + +[Footnote 14: This line reminds us of a well-known passage in Byron:-- + "Man's love is of man's life a thing apart; + 'Tis woman's whole existence. Man may range + The court, camp, church, the vessel and the mart; + Sword, gown, gain, glory, offer in exchange + Pride, fame, ambition, to fill up his heart, + And few there are whom these cannot estrange."] + +[Footnote 15: This is the divine ideal, the realization of which will +bring the true "Golden Age." "God is love; and he that dwelleth in love +dwelleth in God, and God in him."--I _John_ iv. 16.] + +[Footnote 16: This poem first appeared in the _Southern Literary Messenger_ +in 1852. It will serve to show Timrod's manner of using blank verse. It +will be observed that "a lesson" is again the principal thing.] + +[Footnote 17: This recalls the closing lines of Longfellow's _Sunrise +on the Hills_:-- + + "If thou art worn and hard beset + With sorrows that thou wouldst forget, + If thou wouldst read a lesson that will keep + Thy heart from fainting and thy soul from sleep, + Go to the woods and hills! No tears + Dim the sweet look that Nature wears."] + +[Footnote 18: Compare the following lines from Bryant's _Thanatopsis_:-- + + "To him who in the love of Nature holds + Communion with her visible forms, she speaks + A various language; for his gayer hours + She has a voice of gladness, and a smile + And eloquence of beauty, and she glides + Into his darker musings, with a mild + And healing sympathy, that steals away + Their sharpness, ere he is aware."] + + + * * * * * + +SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER + +SONG OF THE CHATTAHOOCHEE [1] + + Out of the hills of Habersham, + Down the valleys of Hall,[2] + The hurrying rain,[3] to reach the plain, + Has run the rapid and leapt the fall, + Split at the rock and together again, + Accepted his bed, or narrow or wide, + And fled from folly on every side, + With a lover's pain to attain the plain, + Far from the hills of Habersham, + Far from the valleys of Hall. + + 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 laurel, slow-laving,[4] turned my tide, + The ferns and the fondling grass said _stay_, + The dewberry dipped for to win delay,[5] + And the little reeds sighed _Abide, abide_, + _Here in the hills of Habersham,_ + _Here in the valleys of Hall._ + + High over the hills of Habersham, + Veiling the valleys of Hall, + The hickory told me manifold + Fair tales of shade, the poplar tall + Wrought me her shadowy self to hold, + The chestnut, the oak, the walnut, the pine, + Overleaning, with flickering meaning and sign, + Said, _Pass not so cold these manifold + Deep shades of the hills of Habersham, + These glades in the valleys of Hall._ + + And oft in the hills of Habersham, + And oft in the valleys of Hall, + The white quartz shone, and the smooth brook-stone + Barred[6] me of passage with friendly brawl, + And many a metal lay sad, alone, + And the diamond, the garnet, the amethyst, + And the crystal that prisons a purple mist, + Showed lights like my own from each cordial stone[7] + In the clefts of the hills of Habersham, + In the beds of the valleys of Hall. + + But oh, not the hills of Habersham, + And oh, not the valleys of Hall, + Shall hinder the rain from attaining the plain,[8] + For downward the voices of duty call-- + Downward to toil and be mixed with the main. + The dry fields burn and the mills are to turn, + And a thousand meadows [9] mortally yearn, + And the final [10] main from beyond the plain + Calls o'er the hills of Habersham, + And calls through the valleys of Hall. + + + +THE CRYSTAL [11] + + At midnight, death's and truth's unlocking time, + When far within the spirit's hearing rolls + The great soft rumble of the course of things-- + A bulk of silence in a mask of sound-- + When darkness clears our vision that by day + Is sun-blind, and the soul's a ravening owl + For truth, and flitteth here and there about + Low-lying woody tracts of time and oft + Is minded for to sit upon a bough, + Dry-dead and sharp, of some long-stricken tree + And muse in that gaunt place,--'twas then my heart, + Deep in the meditative dark, cried out: + + Ye companies of governor-spirits grave, + Bards, and old bringers-down of flaming news + From steep-walled heavens, holy malcontents, + Sweet seers, and stellar visionaries, all + That brood about the skies of poesy, + Full bright ye shine, insuperable stars; + Yet, if a man look hard upon you, none + With total luster blazeth, no, not one + But hath some heinous freckle of the flesh + Upon his shining cheek, not one but winks + His ray, opaqued with intermittent mist + Of defect; yea, you masters all must ask + Some sweet forgiveness, which we leap to give, + We lovers of you, heavenly-glad to meet + Your largess so with love, and interplight + Your geniuses with our mortalities. + + Thus unto thee, O sweetest Shakspere sole,[12] + A hundred hurts a day I do forgive + ('Tis little, but, enchantment! 'tis for thee): + Small curious quibble; ... Henry's fustian roar + Which frights away that sleep he invocates;[13] + Wronged Valentine's [14] unnatural haste to yield; + Too-silly shifts of maids that mask as men + In faint disguises that could ne'er disguise-- + Viola, Julia, Portia, Rosalind;[15] + Fatigues most drear, and needless overtax + Of speech obscure that had as lief be plain. + + ... Father Homer, thee, + Thee also I forgive thy sandy wastes + Of prose and catalogue,[16] thy drear harangues + That tease the patience of the centuries, + Thy sleazy scrap of story,--but a rogue's + Rape of a light-o'-love,[17]--too soiled a patch + To broider with the gods. + + Thee, Socrates,[18] + Thou dear and very strong one, I forgive + Thy year-worn cloak, thine iron stringencies + That were but dandy upside-down,[19] thy words + Of truth that, mildlier spoke, had manlier wrought. + + So, Buddha,[20] beautiful! I pardon thee + That all the All thou hadst for needy man + Was Nothing, and thy Best of being was + But not to be. + + Worn Dante,[21] I forgive + The implacable hates that in thy horrid hells + Or burn or freeze thy fellows, never loosed + By death, nor time, nor love. + + And I forgive + Thee, Milton, those thy comic-dreadful wars [22] + Where, armed with gross and inconclusive steel, + Immortals smite immortals mortalwise, + And fill all heaven with folly. + + Also thee, + Brave Aeschylus,[23] thee I forgive, for that + Thine eye, by bare bright justice basilisked, + Turned not, nor ever learned to look where Love + Stands shining. + + So, unto thee, Lucretius [24] mine, + (For oh, what heart hath loved thee like to this + That's now complaining?) freely I forgive + Thy logic poor, thine error rich, thine earth + Whose graves eat souls and all. + + Yea, all you hearts + Of beauty, and sweet righteous lovers large: + Aurelius [25] fine, oft superfine; mild Saint + A Kempis,[26] overmild; Epictetus,[27] + Whiles low in thought, still with old slavery tinct; + Rapt Behmen,[28] rapt too far; high Swedenborg,[29] + O'ertoppling; Langley,[30] that with but a touch + Of art hadst sung Piers Plowman to the top + Of English songs, whereof 'tis dearest, now, + And most adorable; Caedmon,[31] in the morn + A-calling angels with the cowherd's call + That late brought up the cattle; Emerson, + Most wise, that yet, in finding Wisdom, lost + Thy Self, sometimes; tense Keats, with angels' nerves + Where men's were better; Tennyson, largest voice + Since Milton, yet some register of wit + Wanting,--all, all, I pardon, ere 'tis asked, + Your more or less, your little mole that marks + Your brother and your kinship seals to man. + But Thee, but Thee, O sovereign Seer of time, + But Thee, O poets' Poet, Wisdom's Tongue, + But Thee, O man's best Man, O love's best Love, + O perfect life in perfect labor writ, + O all men's Comrade, Servant, King, or Priest,-- + What _if_ or _yet_, what mole, what flaw, what lapse, + What least defect or shadow of defect, + What rumor, tattled by an enemy, + Of inference loose, what lack of grace + Even in torture's grasp, or sleep's, or death's,-- + Oh, what amiss may I forgive in Thee, + Jesus, good Paragon, thou Crystal Christ?[32] + + + +SUNRISE [33] + + In my sleep I was fain of their fellowship, fain + Of the live-oak, the marsh, and the main. + The little green leaves would not let me alone in my sleep; + Up breathed from the marshes, a message of range and of sweep, + Interwoven with waftures of wild sea-liberties, drifting, + Came through the lapped leaves sifting, sifting, + Came to the gates of sleep. + + Then my thoughts, in the dark of the dungeon-keep + Of the Castle of Captives hid in the City of Sleep, + Upstarted, by twos and by threes assembling: + The gates of sleep fell a-trembling + Like as the lips of a lady that forth falter _yes_, + Shaken with happiness: + The gates of sleep stood wide. + + I have waked, I have come, my beloved! I might not abide: + I have come ere the dawn, O beloved, my live-oaks, to hide + In your gospeling glooms,[34]--to be + As a lover in heaven, the marsh my marsh and the sea my sea. + Tell me, sweet burly-barked, man-bodied Tree + That mine arms in the dark are embracing, dost know + From what fount are these tears at thy feet which flow? + They rise not from reason, but deeper inconsequent deeps. + Reason's not one that weeps. + What logic of greeting lies + Betwixt dear over-beautiful trees and the rain of the eyes? + + O cunning green leaves, little masters! like as ye gloss + All the dull-tissued dark with your luminous darks that emboss. + The vague blackness of night into pattern and plan, + So, + (But would I could know, but would I could know,) + With your question embroid'ring the dark of the + question of man,-- + So, with your silences purfling this silence of man + While his cry to the dead for some knowledge is + under the ban, + Under the ban,-- + So, ye have wrought me + Designs on the night of our knowledge,--yea, ye + have taught me, + So, + That haply we know somewhat more than we know. + + Ye lispers, whisperers, singers in storms, + Ye consciences murmuring faiths under forms, + Ye ministers meet for each passion that grieves, + Friendly, sisterly, sweetheart leaves,[35] + 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.[36] + + My gossip, the owl,--is it thou + That out of the leaves of the low-hanging bough, + As I pass to the beach, art stirred? + Dumb woods, have ye uttered a bird? + + Reverend Marsh, low-couched along the sea, + Old chemist, rapt in alchemy, + Distilling silence,--lo, + That which our father-age had died to know-- + The menstruum that dissolves all matter--thou + Hast found it: for this silence, filling now + The globed clarity of receiving space, + This solves us all: man, matter, doubt, disgrace, + Death, love, sin, sanity, + Must in yon silence' clear solution lie. + Too clear! That crystal nothing who'll peruse? + The blackest night could bring us brighter news. + Yet precious qualities of silence haunt + Round these vast margins, ministrant. + Oh, if thy soul's at latter gasp for space, + With trying to breathe no bigger than thy race + Just to be fellowed, when that thou hast found + No man with room, or grace enough of bound + To entertain that New thou tell'st, thou art,-- + 'Tis here, 'tis here, thou canst unhand thy heart + And breathe it free, and breathe it free, + By rangy marsh, in lone sea-liberty. + + 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 a-spring,-- + 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'erblown in a dream,-- + Yon dome of too-tenuous tissues of space and of night, + Overweighted with stars, overfreighted with light, + Oversated 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 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 nicker of shade on shade. + In the leaves 'tis palpable: low multitudinous stirring + Upwinds through the woods; the little ones, softly conferring, + Have settled my lord's to be looked for; so; they are still; + But the air and my heart and the earth are a-thrill,-- + 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? + 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 withdrawn: + Have a care, sweet Heaven! 'Tis Dawn. + + Now a dream of a flame through that dream of a flush is uprolled: + To the zenith ascending, a dome of undazzling gold + Is builded, in shape as a beehive, from out of the sea: + The hive is of gold undazzling, but oh, the Bee, + The star-fed Bee, the build-fire Bee, + Of dazzling gold is the great Sun-Bee + That shall flash from the hive-hole over the sea.[37] + Yet now the dewdrop, now the morning gray, + Shall live their little lucid sober day + Ere with the sun their souls exhale away. + Now in each pettiest personal sphere of dew + The summ'd morn shines complete as in the blue + Big dewdrop of all heaven: with these lit shrines + O'er-silvered to the farthest sea-confines, + The sacramental marsh one pious plain + Of worship lies. Peace to the ante-reign + Of Mary Morning, blissful mother mild, + Minded of nought but peace, and of a child. + + Not slower than Majesty moves, for a mean and a measure + Of motion,--not faster than dateless Olympian leisure [38] + Might pace with unblown ample garments from pleasure to pleasure,-- + The wave-serrate sea-rim sinks unjarring, unreeling, + Forever revealing, revealing, revealing, + Edgewise, bladewise, halfwise, wholewise,--'tis done! + Good-morrow, lord Sun! + With several voice, with ascription one, + The woods and the marsh and the sea and my soul + Unto thee, whence the glittering stream of all morrows doth roll, + Cry good and past-good and most heavenly morrow, lord Sun. + + O Artisan born in the purple,--Workman Heat,-- + Parter of passionate atoms that travail to meet + And be mixed in the death-cold oneness,--innermost Guest + At the marriage of elements,--fellow of publicans,--blest + King in the blouse of flame, that loiterest o'er + The idle skies, yet laborest fast evermore,-- + Thou in the fine forge-thunder, thou, in the beat + Of the heart of a man, thou Motive,--Laborer Heat: + Yea, Artist, thou, of whose art yon sea's all news, + With his inshore greens and manifold mid-sea blues, + Pearl-glint, shell-tint, ancientest perfectest hues, + Ever shaming the maidens,--lily and rose + Confess thee, and each mild flame that glows + In the clarified virginal bosoms of stones that shine, + It is thine, it is thine: + + Thou chemist of storms, whether driving the winds a-swirl + Or a-flicker the subtiler essences polar that whirl + In the magnet earth,--yea, thou with a storm for a heart, + Rent with debate, many-spotted with question, part + From part oft sundered, yet ever a globed light, + Yet ever the artist, ever more large and bright + Than the eye of a man may avail of:--manifold One, + I must pass from thy face, I must pass from the face of the Sun: + + Old Want is awake and agog, every wrinkle a-frown; + The worker must pass to his work in the terrible town: + But I fear not, nay, and I fear not the thing to be done; + I am strong with the strength of my lord the Sun: + How dark, how dark soever the race that must needs be run, + I am lit with the Sun. + + Oh, never the mast-high run of the seas + Of traffic shall hide thee, + Never the hell-colored smoke of the factories + Hide thee, + Never the reek of the time's fen-politics + Hide thee, + And ever my heart through the night shall with knowledge abide thee, + And ever by day shall my spirit, as one that hath tried thee, + Labor, at leisure, in art,--till yonder beside thee + My soul shall float, friend Sun, + The day being done. + +For a general introduction to Lanier's poetry, see Chapter V. + +[Footnote 1: This poem was first published in _Scott's Magazine_, Atlanta, +Georgia, from which it is here taken. It at once became popular, +and was copied in many newspapers throughout the South. It was +subsequently revised, and the changes, which are pointed out below, are +interesting as showing the development of the poet's artistic sense. + +The singularly rapid and musical lilt of this poem may be readily traced +to its sources. It is due to the skillful use of short vowels, liquid +consonants, internal rhyme, and constant alliteration. These are matters +of technique which Lanier studiously employed throughout his poetry. + +This poem abounds in seeming irregularities of meter. The fundamental +measure is iambic tetrameter, as in the line-- + + "The rushes cried, _Abide, abide_"; + +but trochees, dactyls, or anapests are introduced in almost every line, +yet without interfering with the time element of the verse. These +irregularities were no doubt introduced in order to increase the musical +effects.] + +[Footnote 2: As may be seen by reference to a map, the Chattahoochee +rises in Habersham County, in northeastern Georgia, and in its south- +westerly course passes through the adjoining county of Hall. Its entire +length is about five hundred miles.] + +[Footnote 3: Changed in the revision to "I hurry amain," with the present +tense of the following verbs. The pronoun "his" in line 6 becomes "my."] + +[Footnote 4: This line was changed to-- + + "The laving laurel turned my tide."] + +[Footnote 5: In this line the use of a needless antiquated form may be +fairly questioned. In the revised form "win" is changed to "work."] + +[Footnote 6: "Barred" is changed to "did bar" in the revision--a doubtful +gain.] + +[Footnote 7: The preceding four lines show a decided poetic gain in the +revised form:-- + + "And many a luminous jewel lone-- + Crystals clear or a-cloud with mist, + Ruby, garnet, and amethyst-- + Made lures with the lightnings of streaming stone."] + +[Footnote 8: The revised form, with an awkward pause after the first +foot, and also a useless antiquated phrase, reads-- + + "Avail! I am fain for to water the plain."] + +[Footnote 9: Changed to "myriad of flowers."] + +[Footnote 10: "Final" was changed to "lordly" with fine effect. This poem +challenges comparison with other pieces of similar theme. It lacks the +exquisite workmanship of Tennyson's _The Brook_, with its incomparable +onomatopoeic effects:-- + + "I chatter over stony ways, + In little sharps and trebles; + I bubble into eddying bays, + I babble on the pebbles." + +It should be compared with Hayne's _The River_ and also with his _The +Meadow Brook_:-- + + "Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, + Hark! the tiny swell; + Of wavelets softly, silverly + Toned like a fairy bell, + Whose every note, dropped sweetly + In mellow glamour round, + Echo hath caught and harvested + In airy sheaves of sound!" + +But _The Song of the Chattahoochee_ has what the other poems lack, +--a lofty moral purpose. The noble stream consciously resists the +allurements of pleasure to heed "the voices of duty," and this spirit +imparts to it a greater dignity and weight.] + +[Footnote 11: This poem appeared in The Independent, July 15, 1880, from +which it is taken. It illustrates the intellectual rather than the +musical side of Lanier's genius. It is purely didactic, and thought +rather than melody guides the poet's pen. The meter is quite regular,--an +unusual thing in our author's most characteristic work. + +It shows Lanier's use of pentameter blank verse,--a use that is somewhat +lacking in ease and clearness. The first sentence is longer than that of +Paradise Lost, without Milton's unity and force. Such ponderous sentences +are all too frequent in Lanier, and as a result he is sometimes obscure. +Repeated readings are necessary to take in the full meaning of his best +work. + +This poem, though not bearing the distinctive marks of his genius, is +peculiarly interesting for two reasons,--it gives us an insight into his +wide range of reading and study, and it exhibits his penetration and +sanity as a critic. In the long list of great names he never fails to put +his finger on the vulnerable spot. Frequently he is exceedingly +felicitous, as when he speaks of "rapt Behmen, rapt too far," or of +"Emerson, Most wise, that yet, in finding Wisdom, lost Thy Self +sometimes."] + +[Footnote 12: It will be remembered that Lanier was a careful student of +Shakespeare, on whom he lectured to private classes in Baltimore.] + +[Footnote 13: See second part of _King Henry IV_, iii. I. The +passage which the poet had in mind begins:-- + + "How many thousand of my poorest subjects + Are at this hour asleep!"] + +[Footnote 14: See _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_.] + +[Footnote 15: These characters are found as follows: Viola in _Twelfth +Night_; Julia in _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_; Portia in _The +Merchant of Venice_; and Rosalind in _As You Like It_.] + +[Footnote 16: Referring to the well-known catalogue of ships in the +Second Book of the Illiad:-- + + "My song to fame shall give + The chieftains, and enumerate their ships." + +It is in this passage in particular that Homer is supposed to nod.] + +[Footnote 17: It will be recalled that Paris, son of Priam, king of Troy, +persuaded Helen, the fairest of women and wife of King Menelaus of +Greece, to elope with him to Troy. This incident gave rise to the famous +Trojan War.] + +[Footnote 18: Socrates (469-399 B.C.) was an Athenian philosopher, of +whom Cicero said that he "brought down philosophy from the heavens to the +earth." His teachings are preserved in Xenophon's _Memorabilia_ and +Plato's _Dialogues_.] + +[Footnote 19: That is to say, his needless austerity was as much affected +as the dandy's excessive and ostentatious refinement.] + +[Footnote 20: Buddha, meaning _the enlightened one_, was Prince +Siddhartha of Hindustan, who died about 477 B.C. He was the founder of +the Buddhist religion, which teaches that the supreme attainment of +mankind is Nirvana or extinction. This doctrine naturally follows from +the Buddhist assumption that life is hopelessly evil. Many of the moral +precepts of Buddhism are closely akin to those of Christianity.] + +[Footnote 21: Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), a native of Florence, is the +greatest poet of Italy and one of the greatest poets of the world. His +immortal poem, _The Divine Comedy_, is divided into three parts +--"Hell," "Purgatory," and "Paradise."] + +[Footnote 22: This is a reference to the wars among the angels, which +ended with the expulsion of Satan and his hosts from heaven, as related +in the sixth book of Paradise Lost. This criticism of Milton is as just +as it is felicitous.] + +[Footnote 23: Aeschylus (525-456 B.C.) was the father of Greek tragedy. +He presents _destiny_ in its sternest aspects. His _Prometheus +Bound_ has been translated by Mrs. Browning, and his _Agamemnon_ +by Robert Browning--two dramas that exhibit his grandeur and power at +their best.] + +[Footnote 24: Lucretius (about 95-51 B.C.) was the author of a didactic +poem in six books entitled _De Rerum Natura_. It is Epicurean in +morals and atheistic in philosophy. At the same time, as a work of art, +it is one of the most perfect poems that have descended to us from +antiquity.] + +[Footnote 25: Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 A.D.), one of the best +emperors of Rome, was a noble Stoic philosopher. His _Meditations_ +is regarded by John Stuart Mill as almost equal to the Sermon on the +Mount in moral elevation.] + +[Footnote 26: Thomas a Kempis (1379-1471) was the author of the famous +_Imitation of Christ_ in which, as Dean Milman says, "is gathered +and concentered all that is elevating, passionate, profoundly pious in +all the older mystics." No other book, except the Bible, has been so +often translated and printed.] + +[Footnote 27: Epictetus (born about 50 A.D.) was a Stoic philosopher, +many of whose moral teachings resemble those of Christianity. But he +unduly emphasized renunciation, and wished to restrict human aspiration +to the narrow limits of the attainable.] + +[Footnote 28: Jacob Behmen, or Böhme (1575-1624), was a devout mystic +philosopher, whose speculations, containing much that was beautiful and +profound, sometimes passed the bounds of intelligibility.] + +[Footnote 29: Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) was a Swedish philosopher +and theologian. His principal work, _Arcana Caelestia_, is made up +of profound speculations and spiritualistic extravagance. He often +oversteps the bounds of sanity.] + +[Footnote 30: William Langland, or Langley (about 1332-1400), a disciple +of Wycliffe, was a poet, whose _Vision of Piers Plowman_, written in +strong, alliterative verse, describes, in a series of nine visions, the +manifold corruptions of society, church, and state in England.] + +[Footnote 31: Caedmon (lived about 670) was a cowherd attached to the +monastery of Whitby in England. Later he became a poet, and wrote on +Scripture themes in his native Anglo-Saxon. His _Paraphrase_, is, next +to _Beowulf_, the oldest Anglo-Saxon poem in existence.] + +[Footnote 32: Lanier was deeply religious, but his beliefs were broader +than any creed. In _Remonstrance_ he exclaims,-- + + "Opinion, let me alone: I am not thine. + Prim Creed, with categoric point, forbear + To feature me my Lord by rule and line." + +Yet, as shown in the conclusion of _The Crystal_ he had an exalted +sense of the unapproachable beauty of the life and teachings of Christ. +His tenderest poem is _A Ballad of Trees and the Master_:-- + + "Into the woods my Master went, + Clean forspent, forspent. + Into the woods my Master came, + Forspent with love and shame. + But the olives they were not blind to Him, + The little gray leaves were kind to Him; + The thorn-tree had a mind to Him, + When into the woods He came. + + "Out of the woods my Master went, + And He was well content. + Out of the woods my Master came, + Content with death and shame. + When Death and Shame would woo Him last, + From under the trees they drew Him last: + 'Twas on a tree they slew Him--last + When out of the woods He came."] + +[Footnote 33: This poem was first published in _The Independent_, December +14, 1882, from which it is here taken. The editor said, "This poem, we do +not hesitate to say, is one of the few great poems that have been +written on this side of the ocean." With this judgment there will be +general agreement on the part of appreciative readers. On the emotional +side, it may be said to reach the high-water mark of poetic achievement +in this country. Its emotion at times reaches the summits of poetic +rapture; a little more, and it would have passed into the boundary of +hysterical ecstasy. + +The circumstances of its composition possess a melancholy interest. It +was Lanier's last and greatest poem. He penciled it a few months before +his death when he was too feeble to raise his food to his mouth and when +a burning fever was consuming him. Had he not made this supreme effort, +American literature would be the poorer. This poem exhibits, in a high +degree, the poet's love for Nature. Indeed, most of his great pieces-- +_The Marshes of Glynn, Clover, Corn_, and others--are inspired by the +sights and sounds of Nature. _Sunrise_, in general tone and style, +closely resembles _The Marshes of Glynn_. + +The musical theories of Lanier in relation to poetry find their highest +exemplification in _Sunrise_. It is made up of all the poetic feet +--iambics, trochees, dactyls, anapests--so that it almost defies any +attempt at scansion. But the melody of the verse never fails; equality of +time is observed, along with a rich use of alliteration and assonance. + +The poem may be easily analyzed; and a distinct notation of its +successive themes may be helpful to the young reader. Its divisions are +marked by its irregular stanzas. It consists of fifteen parts as follows: +1. The call of the marshes to the poet in his slumbers, and his awaking. +2. He comes as a lover to the live-oaks and marshes. 3. His address to +the "man-bodied tree," and the "cunning green leaves." 4. His petition +for wisdom and for a prayer of intercession. 5. The stirring of the owl. +6. Address to the "reverend marsh, distilling silence." 7. Description of +the full tide. 8. "The bow-and-string tension of beauty and silence." 9. +The motion of dawn. 10. The golden flush of the eastern sky. 11. The +sacramental marsh at worship. 12. The slow rising of the sun above the +sea horizon. 13. Apostrophe to heat. 14. The worker must pass from the +contemplation of this splendor to his toil. 15. The poet's +inextinguishable adoration of the sun.] + +[Footnote 34: "Gospeling glooms" means glooms that convey to the +sensitive spirit sweet messages of good news.] + +[Footnote 35: Lanier continually attributes personality to the objects of +Nature, and places them in tender relations to man. Here the little +leaves become-- + + "Friendly, sisterly, sweetheart leaves," + +as a few lines before they were "little masters." In _Individuality_ +we read,-- + + "Sail on, sail on, fair cousin Cloud." + +And in _Corn_ there is a passage of great tenderness:-- + + "The leaves that wave against my cheek caress + Like women's hands; the embracing boughs express + A subtlety of mighty tenderness; + The copse-depths into little noises start, + That sound anon like beatings of a heart, + Anon like talk 'twixt lips not far apart."] + +[Footnote 36: This passage is Wordsworthian in spirit. Nature is regarded +as a teacher who suggests or reveals ineffable things. Lanier might have +said, as did Wordsworth,-- + + "To me the meanest flower that blows can give + Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."] + +[Footnote 37: Lanier had a lively and vigorous imagination, which is seen +in his use of personification and metaphor. In this poem almost every +object--trees, leaves, marsh, streams, sun, heat--is personified. This +same fondness for personification may be observed in his other +characteristic poems. + +In the use of metaphor it may be doubted whether the poet is always so +happy. There is sometimes inaptness or remoteness in his resemblances. To +liken the naming heavens to a beehive, and the rising sun to a bee +issuing from the "hive-hole," can hardly be said to add dignity to the +description. + +In _Clover_ men are clover heads, which the Course-of-things, as an +ox, browses upon:-- + + "This cool, unasking Ox + Comes browsing o'er my hills and vales of Time, + And thrusts me out his tongue, and curls it, sharp, + And sicklewise, about my poets' heads, + And twists them in.... + and champs and chews, + With slantly-churning jaws and swallows down."] + +[Footnote 38: The deities of Olympus, being immortal, have no need of +strenuous haste. They may well move from pleasure to pleasure with +stately leisure.] + + + * * * * * + +SELECTIONS FROM FATHER RYAN + +SONG OF THE MYSTIC [1] + + I walk down the Valley of Silence--[2] + 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 was I weary of voices + Whose music my heart could not win; + Long ago was I weary of noises + That fretted my soul with their din; + Long ago was I weary of places + Where I met but the human--and sin.[3] + + 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." + + And still did I pine for the Perfect, + And still found the False with the True; + I sought 'mid the Human for Heaven, + But caught a mere glimpse of its 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 dewdrops + That fall on the roses in 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;[4] + 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 the Silence + That never shall float into speech; + And I have had dreams in the Valley + Too lofty for language to reach. + + 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![5] + + 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. + + + +THE CONQUERED BANNER [6] + + 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![7] + + Take that 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. + + Furl that Banner! furl it sadly! + Once ten thousands hailed it gladly, + And ten thousands wildly, madly, + Swore it should forever wave; + Swore that foeman's sword should never + Hearts like theirs entwined dissever, + Till 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![8] + But, oh! wildly they deplore it, + Now who 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 dead![9] + + + +THE SWORD OF ROBERT LEE [10] + + 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. + + 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 a brighter land, + Nor brighter land had a cause so grand, + Nor cause a chief like Lee![11] + + 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. + + + +DEATH [12] + + Out of the shadows of sadness, + Into the sunshine of gladness, + Into the light of the blest; + Out of a land very dreary, + Out of the world very weary, + Into the rapture of rest. + + Out of to-day's sin and sorrow, + Into a blissful to-morrow, + Into a day without gloom; + Out of a land filled with sighing, + Land of the dead and the dying, + Into a land without tomb. + + Out of a life of commotion, + Tempest-swept oft as the ocean, + Dark with the wrecks drifting o'er, + Into a land calm and quiet; + Never a storm cometh nigh it, + Never a wreck on its shore. + + Out of a land in whose bowers + Perish and fade all the flowers; + Out of the land of decay, + Into the Eden where fairest + Of flowerets, and sweetest and rarest, + Never shall wither away. + + Out of the world of the wailing + Thronged with the anguished and ailing; + Out of the world of the sad, + Into the world that rejoices-- + World of bright visions and voices-- + Into the world of the glad. + + Out of a life ever mournful, + Out of a land very lornful, + Where in bleak exile we roam,[13] + Into a joy-land above us, + Where there's a Father to love us-- + Into our home--"Sweet Home." + + + +PRESENTIMENT [14] + + Cometh a voice from a far-land, + Beautiful, sad, and low; + Shineth a light from the star-land + Down on the night of my woe; + And a white hand, with a garland, + Biddeth my spirit to go. + + Away and afar from the night-land, + Where sorrow o'ershadows my way, + To the splendors and skies of the light-land, + Where reigneth eternity's day,-- + To the cloudless and shadowless bright-land, + Whose sun never passeth away. + + And I knew the voice; not a sweeter + On earth or in Heaven can be; + And never did shadow pass fleeter + Than it, and its strange melody; + And I know I must hasten to meet her, + "Yea, _Sister!_ Thou callest to me!" + + And I saw the light; 'twas not seeming, + It flashed from the crown that she wore, + And the brow, that with jewels was gleaming, + My lips had kissed often of yore! + And the eyes, that with rapture were beaming, + Had smiled on me sweetly before. + + And I saw the hand with the garland, + Ethel's hand--holy and fair; + Who went long ago to the far-land + To weave me the wreath I shall wear; + And to-night I look up to the star-land + And pray that I soon may be there.[15] + + + +NIGHT THOUGHTS [16] + + Some reckon their age by years, + Some measure their life by art,-- + But some tell their days by the flow of their tears, + And their life, by the moans of their heart. + + The dials of earth may show + The length--not the depth of years; + Few or many they come, few or many they go, + But our time is best measured by tears. + + Ah! not by the silver gray + That creeps through the sunny hair, + And not by the scenes that we pass on our way, + And not by the furrows the fingers of care, + + On forehead and face, have made: + Not so do we count our years; + Not by the sun of the earth, but the shade + Of our souls, and the fall of our tears. + + For the young are oft-times old, + Though their brow be bright and fair; + While their blood beats warm, their heart lies cold-- + O'er them the springtime, but winter is there. + + And the old are oft-times young, + When their hair is thin and white; + And they sing in age, as in youth they sung, + And they laugh, for their cross was light. + + But bead by bead I tell + The rosary of my years; + From a cross to a cross they lead,--'tis well! + And they're blest with a blessing of tears. + + Better a day of strife + Than a century of sleep; + Give me instead of a long stream of life, + The tempests and tears of the deep. + + A thousand joys may foam + On the billows of all the years; + But never the foam brings the brave [17] heart home-- + It reaches the haven through tears. + +For a general introduction to Father Ryan's poetry, see Chapter VI. + +[Footnote 1: As stated in the sketch of Father Ryan, this poem strikes +the keynote to his verse. It therefore properly opens his volume of +poems. It became popular on its first publication, and was copied in +various papers. It is here taken from the _Religious Herald_, Richmond, +Virginia.] + +[Footnote 2: The location of _The Valley of Silence_ is given in the +last stanza.] + +[Footnote 3: This poem may be taken, in a measure, as autobiographic. In +this stanza, and the two following ones, the poet refers to that period +of his life before he resolved to consecrate himself to the priesthood.] + +[Footnote 4: This indicates the general character of his poetry. Inspired +in _The Valley of Silence_, it is sad, meditative, mystical, religious.] + +[Footnote 5: Perhaps every poet has this experience. There come to him +elusive glimpses of truth and beauty which are beyond the grasp of +speech. As some one has sung:-- + + "Sometimes there rise, from deeps unknown, + Before my inmost gaze, + Far brighter scenes than earth has shown + In morning's orient blaze; + I try to paint the visions bright, + But, oh, their glories turn to night!"] + +[Footnote 6: This poem was first published in Father Ryan's paper, the +_Banner of the South_, March 21, 1868, from which it is here taken. Coming +so soon after the close of the Civil War, it touched the Southern +heart.] + +[Footnote 7: For a criticism of the versification of this stanza, see the +chapter on Father Ryan.] + +[Footnote 8: This note of pardon, in keeping with the poet's priestly +character, is found in several of his lyrics referring to the war. In +spite of his strong Southern feeling, there is no unrelenting bitterness. +Thus, in _The Prayer of the South_, which appeared a week later, we +read:-- + + "Father, I kneel 'mid ruin, wreck, and grave,-- + A desert waste, where all was erst so fair,-- + And for my children and my foes I crave + Pity and pardon. Father, hear my prayer!"] + +[Footnote 9: This was the poet's feeling in 1868. In a similar strain we +read in _The Prayer of the South_:-- + + "My heart is filled with anguish deep and vast! + My hopes are buried with my children's dust! + My joys have fled, my tears are flowing fast! + In whom, save Thee, our Father, shall I trust?" + +Happily the poet lived to see a new order of things--an era in which vain +regrets gave place to energetic courage, hope, and endeavor.] + +[Footnote 10: This poem first appeared in the _Banner of the South_, +April 4, 1868, and, like the preceding one, has been very popular in the +South.] + +[Footnote 11: Father Ryan felt great admiration for General Lee, who has +remained in the South the popular hero of the war. In the last of his +_Sentinel Songs_, the poet-priest pays a beautiful tribute to the +stainless character of the Confederate leader:-- + + "Go, Glory, and forever guard + Our chieftain's hallowed dust; + And Honor, keep eternal ward, + And Fame, be this thy trust! + Go, with your bright emblazoned scroll + And tell the years to be, + The first of names to flash your roll + Is ours--great Robert Lee."] + +[Footnote 12: This poem was first published in the _Banner of the +South_, April 25, 1868. It illustrates the profounder themes on which +the poet loved to dwell, and likewise the Christian faith by which they +were illumined.] + +[Footnote 13: This mournful view of life appears frequently in Father +Ryan's poems. In _De Profundis_, for example, we read:-- + + "All the hours are full of tears-- + O my God! woe are we! + Grief keeps watch in brightest eyes-- + Every heart is strung with fears, + Woe are we! woe are we! + All the light hath left the skies, + And the living, awe-struck crowds + See above them only clouds, + And around them only shrouds."] + +[Footnote 14: This poem, as the two preceding ones, is taken from the +_Banner of the South_, where it appeared June 13, 1868. It affords a +glimpse of the tragical romance of the poet's life. The voice that he +hears is that of "Ethel," the lost love of his youth. Her memory never +left him. In the poem entitled _What?_ it is again her spirit voice +that conveys to his soul an ineffable word.] + +[Footnote 15: This desire for death occurs in several poems, as _When?_ +and _Rest_. In the latter poem it is said:-- + + "'Twas always so; when but a child I laid + On mother's breast + My wearied little head--e'en then I prayed + As now--for rest."] + +[Footnote 16: This poem is taken from the _Banner of the South_, where +it appeared June 29, 1870. In the volume of collected poems the title +is changed to _The Rosary of my Tears_.] + +[Footnote 17: "Brave" is changed to "lone" in the poet's revision.] + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, POETS OF THE SOUTH *** + +This file should be named 7274-8.txt or 7274-8.zip + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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