The Poems of Henry Timrod | Page 8

one characteristic above all others that marked the poet's life was
his unfaltering trust, -- the soul's unclouded sky,
a quenchless
radiance of blessed sunlight amid the deep darkness that encompassed
him.
As in his poetry there is no false note, no doubtful sentiment, no selfish
grief, even when he sings with breast against the thorn, so in his life do
we find no word of bitterness or moaning or complaining. Even amid
the terrible blight of war and its final utter ruin, prophet-like, he speaks
in faith and hope and courage. His own heart breaking, and life ebbing,
he writes of Spring as the true Reconstructionist, and pleads her
message to his stricken people. It is so true and prophetic that we quote
the words written in April, 1866.
"For Spring is a true Reconstructionist, -- a reconstructionist in the best
and most practical sense. There is not a nook in the land in which she is

not at this moment exerting her influence in preparing a way for the
restoration of the South. No politician may oppose her; her power
defies embarrassment; but she is not altogether independent of help.
She brings us balmy airs and gentle dews, golden suns and silver rains;
and she says to us, `These are the materials of the only work in which
you need be at present concerned; avail yourselves of them to reclothe
your naked country and feed your impoverished people, and you will
find that, in the discharge of that task,
you have taken the course
which will most certainly and most peacefully conduct you to the
position which you desire. Turn not aside to bandy epithets with your
enemies; stuff your ears, like the princess in the Arabian Nights,
against words of insult and wrong;
pause not to muse over your
condition, or to question your prospects; but toil on bravely, silently,
surely. . . .'
"Such are the words of wise and kindly counsel, which, if we attend
rightly, we may all hear in the winds and read in the skies of Spring.
Nowhere, however, does she speak with so eloquent a voice or so
pathetic an effect as in this ruined town. She covers our devastated
courts
with images of renovation in the shape of flowers; she hangs
once more in our blasted gardens the fragrant lamps of the jessamine;
in our streets she kindles the maple like a beacon; and from amidst the
charred and blackened ruins of once happy homes she pours, through
the mouth of her favorite musician, the mocking-bird, a song of hope
and joy. What is the lesson which she designs by these means to
convey? It may be summed in a single sentence, -- forgetfulness of the
past, effort in the present, and trust for the future."
Such was the lofty creed and last hopeful, but dying message to his
brothers of the South, whose war songs he had written, and the requiem
of whose martyred hosts he had chanted.
Such was the tragedy that ended in October, 1867, with the hero at the
age of thirty-seven; glory, genius, anguish, tears,
but unconquerable
faith and heroic fortitude. His larger life scarce begun, his full power
felt, but only half expressed, he realized deeply --

"The petty done, the vast undone!"
He yearned with passionate longing and hope and conscious might to
fulfill an even greater mission; but in the infinite providence of God the
full fruitage of this exquisite soul was for another sphere. He was
indeed "one of those who stirred us, a friend of man and a lover. In no
country of this earth could he long have been an alien, and that may
now be said of his spirit. In no part of this universe could it feel lonely
or unbefriended; it was in harmony with all that flowers or gives
perfume in life."
The story of his last days, as given by his poet-friend, Paul Hayne, at
the latter's cottage among the pines, is of tender and peculiar interest,
and we quote it here, as it was written in 1873: --
==
. . . In the latter summer-tide of this same year (1867),
I again
persuaded him to visit me. Ah! how sacred now, how sad and sweet,
are the memories of that rich, clear, prodigal August of '67!
We would rest on the hillsides, 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
into 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