Poets of the South | Page 5

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