The Poems of Henry Timrod | Page 5

revel there;
For gazing on thee, do I sigh
That those most happy years must flee,

And thy full share of misery
Must fall in life on thee!
There is no lasting grief below,
My Harry! that flows not from guilt;

Thou canst not read my meaning now --
In after times thou wilt.
Thou'lt read it when the churchyard clay
Shall lie upon thy father's
breast,
And he, though dead, will point the way
Thou shalt be
always blest.
They'll tell thee this terrestrial ball,
To man for his enjoyment given,

Is but a state of sinful thrall
To keep the soul from heaven.
My boy! the verdure-crown|\ed hills,
The vales where flowers
innumerous blow,
The music of ten thousand rills
Will tell thee, 't is
not so.

God is no tyrant who would spread
Unnumbered dainties to the eyes,

Yet teach the hungering child to dread
That touching them he dies!
No! all can do his creatures good,
He scatters round with hand
profuse --
The only precept understood,
ENJOY, BUT NOT
ABUSE!
The poet's mother was the daughter of Mr. Charles Prince,
a citizen
of Charleston, whose parents had come from England just before the
Revolution. Mr. Prince had married Miss French, daughter of an officer
in the Revolution, whose family were from Switzerland. It was the
influence of his mother also that helped to form the poet's character,
and his intense and passionate love of nature. Her beautiful face and
form, her purity and goodness, her delight in all the sights and sounds
of the country, her childish rapture in wood and field, her love of
flowers and trees, and all the mystery and gladness of nature, are
among the cherished memories of all her children, and vividly
described by the poet's sister.
William Henry Timrod, father of the poet, died of disease contracted in
the Florida war, and his family thereafter were in straitened
circumstances. Nevertheless, the early education of his gifted son was
provided for. Paul H. Hayne, the poet, was one of his earliest friends
and schoolmates at Charleston's best school. They sat together, and to
his brother boy-poet he first showed his earliest verses in exulting
confidence. This friendship and confidence lasted through life, and
Hayne has tenderly embalmed it in his sketch of the poet. We have this
faithful picture of him at that time: --
"Modest and diffident, with a nervous utterance, but with melody ever
in his heart and on his lip. Though always slow of speech, he was yet,
like Burns, quick to learn. The chariot wheels might jar in the gate
through which he tried to drive his winged steeds, but the horses were
of celestial temper and the car purest gold."
His school-fellows remember him as silent and shy, full of quick
impulse, and with an eager ambition, insatiable in his thirst for books,

yet mingling freely in all sports, and rejoicing unspeakably in the
weekly holiday and its long rambles through wood and field. "The
sweet security of streets" had no charm for him. He rejoiced in Nature
and her changing scenes and seasons. She was always to him comfort,
refreshment, balm. She never turned her face from him,
and through
all his years he "leaned on her breast with loving trustfulness as a little
child."
But he had other teachers. He studied all classic literature. "The
|Aeschylean drama had no attraction for him; he reveled in the rich and
elegant strains of Virgil, and of the many toned lyre of Horace and the
silver lute of Catullus." From the full and inexhaustible fountain of
English letters he drank unceasingly. Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton,
Burns, Wordsworth, and, later, Tennyson were his immediate
inspiration.
His college life at the University of Georgia was interrupted by
sickness and cramped by lack of means, and his literary plans were
foiled by necessity. Nevertheless, he left his Alma Mater with a mind
stirred to its depths, and with a large store of learning, and had already
sounded with clear note those chords which were afterwards so vocal in
melody.
Dr. J. Dickson Bruns has left this graphic description of Timrod's
personal appearance, and of some prominent traits of his social
character: --
"In stature," he says, "Timrod was far below the medium height. He
had always excelled in boyish sports, and, as he grew to manhood, his
unusual breadth of shoulder still seemed to indicate a physical vigor
which the slender wrists, thin, transparent hands, and habitually lax
attitude but too plainly contradicted.
"The square jaw was almost stern in its strongly pronounced lines, the
mouth large, the lips exquisitely sensitive, the gray eyes set deeply
under massive brows, and full of a melancholy and pleading tenderness,
which attracted attention to his face at once, as the face of one who had
thought and suffered much.

"His walk was quick and nervous, with an energy in it that betokened
decision of character, but ill sustained by