The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1901-05-22

which is the best evidence of true
social culture. There was also in the
community, in Timrods's youth,
group of men Of marked intellectual
and poetic taste who formed coterle
and sustained one another in their lit
erarv aspirations and dreams; of this
little company Timrod, Paul Hamilton
Hayne, and ". Gilmore Simms were
foremost.
Timrod was a sensitive child, who
was fortunate, like Goethe and many
another boy of poetic temperament, in
finding in his mother visible proyl-
dence of the imagination-one who
recognized the double parentage OF
her child, and made him at home IN
the world of nature and sentiment, OF
beauty and gladness, where the born
poets are trained. He was Of a sensi-
tive spirit, shy in the presence Of 9th
ers, but impetuous and frank with q
friend, and passionate lover of nature.
His collage opportunities were meager,
but early he found his way to the best
literature, and made his friends especi-
ally among the Latin and English
poets. He tried to be a lawyer, but
soon discovered his blunder, and be-
came teacher by vocation and poet
by ayocation.
The sky was already beginning to
darken with the clouds of civil strife
when Timrod entered upon his active
life, and there was but brief interval
before the bursting of the storm. The
first edition of his poems was publish
ed in Boston in 1860, and found in
slant recognition in the North, where
he would have had a generous hearing
and large audience if the arts had
had not suddenly been thrust into the
background by the approach OF war.
No poet in the conntry was more
deeply moved by that struggle; to no
poet did it bring more definite inspi-
rations; from no poet did it evoke a
truer lyrical note. Timrod's Ethno-
genesis, - written while the first
Southern Congress was debating, in
February, 1861, the question of seces-
sion, may be taken as a prelude to the
strug ggle, as Lowell's "Commemora-
tion Ode'' may be taken as its cpl
logue; between the two was created
that splended tradition of heroism
which is not only common inherit
ance for the whole country, but will
be a perennial sourceof inspiration for
the National poetry of the future. In
Carolina, much longer poem, the
lyrical passion of Timrod reaches its
highest point; the misconceptions of
the poem are part of the great mis-
understanding of the time; its pas
sionate fire, its lyrical charm, its
pulse of stormy music, place it among
the permanent contrib buttons to Amer
ican literuture.
In "The Cotton-Boll'' Ing Edepth Of
thought, in comprehensiveness of i'm
agination, and in beauty of style,
Timrod touched his high-water mark.
This poem, in it's large and free move
ment of imagination, belongs, with
Lanier's Sunrise and Whitman's
"Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rock
ing,'' among the most original
achievements of American poetry
rich alike in what it conserves and in
what it promises, 1t is, however,
as a song-writer that Timrod showed
the greatest mastery of his art, and
it is as a song-writer that he will live
in the poetry of the future. The lines
on the occasion of decorating the
graves of the Confederate soldiers at
Magnolia Grove Cemetary in 1857 are
among the most perfect which have
vet appeared in our poetry; the poem
is one of the four or five songs Of the
war time which will be heard In the
distant future
High-minded, pure minded, conse-
Grated to his art. with all the charm
of the Southern temperament and the
generosity of the Southern nature,
Timrod is one of the most attractive
figures and one of the most pathetic
in the brief history Of our literature.
The story of Southern poetry IS tragic
in its reiteration OF the waste OF war,
the absence of opportunity the lack
of sympathetic fellowship but it is
conspicuous also for the uniform he
roism, the singular beauty of nature,
and the loyalty to art when nave
characterized the representative
Southern singers. Timrod- Hayne,
and Lanier were not only men o!
stainless life; there was touch OF
the heroic in each OF them. Ihey
have not yet come to their own.
Caught up in the storm OF war, or
coming upon the scene in those terri
BILE years which followed the war,
when the South was prostrate and the
continent was strewn with wreckage
from the Atlantic to the Mississippi
River, they contended against terrible
obstacles, and were denied the recog..
milton, the comfort, and the ease OF
mind which ought to have been theirs
for the freest development OF thelr
art. They belong as much to the
North as to the South. Tunrod espe-
cially appeals to the Northern reader
bv reason of his freedom of imagina-
ton, his power of surrender to emo
ton. and the chivalric note OF his
The unveiling of the statue in
Charleston is an evidence OF local
recognition it is time that the Ma
ton gave this pureminded and gener-
ous-hearsed Southern singer the rep
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