The Poems of Henry Timrod | Page 9

the sand."
But the evenings, with their gorgeous sunsets "rolling down like a
chorus" and the "gray-eyed melancholy gloaming", were the favorite

hours of the day with him. He would often apostrophize twilight in the
language of Wordsworth's sonnet: --
"Hail, twilight! sovereign of one peaceful hour!
Not dull art thou as
undiscerning night;
But only studious to remove from sight

Day's mutable distinctions."
"Yes," said he, "she is indeed sovereign of ONE PEACEFUL HOUR!
In the hardest, busiest time one feels the calm, merciful-minded queen
stealing upon one in the fading light, and `whispering', as Ford has it
(or is it Fletcher?), -- `WHISPERING tranquillity'."
When in-doors and disposed to read, he took much pleasure
in
perusing the poems of Robert Buchanan and Miss Ingelow.
The
latter's "Ballads" particularly delighted him. One,
written "in the old
English manner", he quickly learned by heart, repeating it with a relish
and fervor indescribable.
Here is the opening stanza: --
"Come out and hear the waters shoot, the owlet hoot, the owlet hoot;
Yon crescent moon, a golden boat, hangs dim behind the tree, O! The
dropping thorn makes white the grass, O! sweetest lass, and sweetest
lass
Come out and smell the ricks of hay adown the croft with me,
O!"
With but a slight effort of memory I can vividly recall his voice and
manner in repeating these simple yet beautiful lines.
They were the last verses I ever heard from the poet's lips.
Just as the woods were assuming their first delicate autumnal tints,
Timrod took his leave of us. In a conversation on the night but one
previous to his departure, we had been speaking of Dr. Parr and other
literary persons of unusual age, when he observed: "I haven't the
slightest desire, P----, to be an octogenarian, far less a centenarian, like
old Parr; but I hope that I may be spared until I am FIFTY or
fifty-five."
"About Shakespeare's age," I suggested.
"Oh!" he replied, smiling, "I was not thinking of THAT;
but I'm sure
that after fifty-five I would begin to wither, mind and body, and one

hates the idea of a mummy, intellectual or physical. Do you remember
that picture of extreme old age which Charles Reade gives us in `Never
Too Late to Mend'? George Fielding, the hero,
is about going away
from England to try his luck in Australia. All his friends and relations
are around him, expressing their sorrow at his enforced voyage; all but
his grandfather, aged ninety-two, who sits stolid and mumbling in his
armchair.
"`Grandfather!' shouts George into the deafened ears,
`I'm going a
long journey; mayhap shall never see you again; speak a word to me
before I go!' Grandfather looks up,
brightens for a moment, and
cackles feebly out: `George,
fetch me some SNUFF from where
you're going. See now' (half whimpering), `I'm out of snuff.' A good
point in the way of illustration, but not a pleasant picture."
On the 13th of September, ten days after Timrod's return to Columbia,
he wrote me the following note: --
"Dear P----: I have been too sick to write before, and am still too sick to
drop you more than a few lines. You will be surprised and pained to
hear that I have had a severe hemorrhage of the lungs.
"I did not come home an instant too soon. I found them without money
or provisions. Fortunately I brought with me a small sum. I won't tell
you how small, but six dollars of it was from
the editor of the
`Opinion' for my last poem.
"I left your climate to my injury. But not only for the sake of my health,
I begin already to look back with longing regret to `Copse Hill'. You
have all made me feel as if I had TWO beloved homes!
"I wish that I could divide myself between them; or that I had wings, so
that I might flit from one to other in a moment.
"I hope soon to write you at length. Yours," etc.
Again on the 16th I heard from him, thus: --

"Yesterday I had a still more copious hemorrhage! . . .
"I am lying supine in bed, forbidden to speak or make any exertion
whatever. But I can't resist the temptation of dropping you a line,
in
the hope of calling forth a score or two from you in return.
"An awkward time this for me to be sick! We are destitute of funds,
almost of food. But God will provide!
"I send you a Sonnet, written the other day, as an Obituary for Mr.
Harris Simons. Tell me what you think of it -- be sure! Love to your
mother, wife, and my precious Willie [since the death of his own child
he had turned with a yearning affection to my boy]. Let me hear from
you soon -- VERY