Poets of the South / A Series of Biographical and Critical Studies with Typical Poems, Annotated

by F. V. N. Painter

THE SUMMER BOWER [16]

It is a place whither I have often gone
For peace, and found it, secret, hushed, and cool,
A beautiful recess in neighboring woods.
Trees of the soberest hues, thick-leaved and tall.
Arch it o'erhead and column it around,
Framing a covert, natural and wild,
Domelike and dim; though nowhere so enclosed
But that the gentlest breezes reach the spot
Unwearied and unweakened. Sound is here
A transient and unfrequent visitor;
Yet, if the day be calm, not often then,
Whilst the high pines in one another's arms
Sleep, you may sometimes with unstartled ear
Catch the far fall of voices, how remote
You know not, and you do not care to know.
The turf is soft and green, but not a flower
Lights the recess, save one, star-shaped and bright—
I do not know its name—which here and there
Gleams like a sapphire set in emerald.
A narrow opening in the branchèd roof,
A single one, is large enough to show,
With that half glimpse a dreamer loves so much,
The blue air and the blessing of the sky.
Thither I always bent my idle steps,
When griefs depressed, or joys disturbed my heart,
And found the calm I looked for, or returned
Strong with the quiet rapture in my soul.[17]
But one day,
One of those July days when winds have fled
One knows not whither, I, most sick in mind
With thoughts that shall be nameless, yet, no doubt,
Wrong, or at least unhealthful, since though dark
With gloom, and touched with discontent, they had
No adequate excuse, nor cause, nor end,
I, with these thoughts, and on this summer day,
Entered the accustomed haunt, and found for once
No medicinal virtue.
Not a leaf
Stirred with the whispering welcome which I sought,
But in a close and humid atmosphere,
Every fair plant and implicated bough
Hung lax and lifeless. Something in the place,
Its utter stillness, the unusual heat,
And some more secret influence, I thought,
Weighed on the sense like sin. Above I saw,
Though not a cloud was visible in heaven,
The pallid sky look through a glazèd mist
Like a blue eye in death.
The change, perhaps,
Was natural enough; my jaundiced sight,
The weather, and the time explain it all:
Yet have I drawn a lesson from the spot,
And shrined it in these verses for my heart.
Thenceforth those tranquil precincts I have sought
Not less, and in all shades of various moods;
But always shun to desecrate the spot
By vain repinings, sickly sentiments,
Or inconclusive sorrows. Nature, though
Pure as she was in Eden when her breath
Kissed the white brow of Eve, doth not refuse,
In her own way and with a just reserve,
To sympathize with human suffering;[18]
But for the pains, the fever, and the fret
Engendered of a weak, unquiet heart,
She hath no solace; and who seeks her when
These be the troubles over which he moans,
Reads in her unreplying lineaments
Rebukes, that, to the guilty consciousness,
Strike like contempt.

For a general introduction to the following selections, see Chapter IV.
The poet's verse is perfectly clear. He prefers to

"Cling to the lowly and be content."

[Footnote 1: This poem, which first appeared in Russell's Magazine, exhibits one of Timrod's characteristics: he does not describe Nature for its own sake, as Hayne often does, but for the sake of some truth or lesson in relation to man. The lesson of this poem is that a life of uninterrupted ease and comfort is not favorable to the development of noble character.]

[Footnote 2: This selection illustrates the fierce energy of the poet's martial lyrics. Compare Bannockburn by Burns, which Carlyle said "should be sung with the throat of the whirlwind.">[

[Footnote 3: Byre is a cow-stable.]

[Footnote 4: Rack, usually wrack, signifies ruin or destruction.]

[Footnote 5: This lyric, which was sung on the occasion of decorating the graves of the Confederate dead in Magnolia Cemetery, Charleston, South Carolina, in 1867, has been much admired, especially the last stanza.]

[Footnote 6: It is interesting to know that this prediction has been fulfilled. A monument of granite now stands above the dead.]

[Footnote 7: Behalf, instead of in behalf of, is a rather hazardous construction.]

[Footnote 8: A noble bronze figure of a color bearer on a granite pedestal now commemorates the fallen heroes.]

[Footnote 9: This poem first appeared in the Southern Literary Messenger in 1851. The first stanza of this half-playful, half-serious piece, mentions the objects in which the poet most delighted.]

[Footnote 10: This belief has been frequently held, and has some support from recent scientific experiments. But that this sentiency goes as far as the poet describes, is of course pure fancy.]

[Footnote 11: The sibyls (Sybil is an incorrect form) were, according to ancient mythology, prophetic women. The sibylline leaves or books contained their teachings, and were preserved with the utmost care in Rome. The sibyl of Cumae conducted Aeneas through the under world, as narrated in the sixth book of Virgil's Aeneid.]

[Footnote 12: This sonnet expresses the poet's creed, to which his practice was confirmed. This fact imparts unusual simplicity to his verse—a simplicity that strikes us all the more at the present time, when an over-refinement of thought and expression is in vogue.]

[Footnote 13: This sonnet, on the commonest of all poetic themes, treats of love in a deep, serious way. It is removed as far as possible from the sentimental.]

[Footnote 14: This line reminds us of a well-known passage in Byron:—
"Man's love is of man's life a thing apart;
'Tis woman's whole existence. Man may range
The court, camp, church, the vessel and the mart;
Sword, gown, gain, glory, offer in exchange
Pride, fame, ambition, to fill up his heart,
And few there are whom these cannot estrange.">[

[Footnote 15: This is the divine ideal, the realization of which will bring the true "Golden Age." "God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him."—I John iv. 16.]

[Footnote 16: This poem first appeared in the Southern Literary Messenger in 1852. It will serve to show Timrod's manner of using blank verse. It will be observed that "a lesson" is again the principal thing.]

[Footnote 17: This recalls the closing lines of Longfellow's Sunrise on the Hills:—

"If thou art worn and hard beset
With sorrows that thou wouldst forget,
If thou wouldst read a lesson that will keep
Thy heart from fainting and thy soul from sleep,
Go to the woods and hills! No tears
Dim the sweet look that Nature wears.">[

[Footnote 18: Compare the following lines from Bryant's Thanatopsis:—

"To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware.">[

* * * * *

SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER

SONG OF THE CHATTAHOOCHEE [1]

Out of the hills of Habersham,
Down the valleys of Hall,[2]
The hurrying rain,[3] to reach the plain,
Has run the rapid and leapt the fall,
Split at the rock and together again,
Accepted his bed, or narrow or wide,
And fled from folly on every side,
With a lover's pain to attain the plain,
Far from the hills of Habersham,
Far from the valleys of Hall.

All down the hills of Habersham,
All through the valleys of Hall,
The rushes cried, Abide, abide;
The wilful water weeds held me thrall,
The laurel, slow-laving,[4] turned my tide,
The ferns and the fondling grass said stay,
The dewberry dipped for to win delay,[5]
And the little reeds sighed Abide, abide,
Here in the hills of Habersham,
Here in the valleys of Hall.

High over the hills of Habersham,
Veiling the valleys of Hall,
The hickory told me manifold
Fair tales of shade, the poplar tall
Wrought me her shadowy self to hold,
The chestnut, the oak, the walnut, the pine,
Overleaning, with flickering meaning and sign,
Said, Pass not so cold these manifold
Deep shades of the hills of Habersham,
These glades in the valleys of Hall.

And oft in the hills of Habersham,
And oft in the valleys of Hall,
The white quartz shone, and the smooth brook-stone
Barred[6] me of passage with friendly brawl,
And many a metal lay sad, alone,
And the diamond, the garnet, the amethyst,
And the crystal that prisons a purple mist,
Showed lights like my own from each cordial stone[7]
In the clefts of the hills of Habersham,
In the beds of the valleys of Hall.

But oh, not the hills of Habersham,
And oh, not the valleys of Hall,
Shall hinder the rain from attaining the plain,[8]
For downward the voices of duty call—
Downward to toil and be mixed with the main.
The dry fields burn and the mills are to turn,
And a thousand meadows [9] mortally yearn,
And the final [10] main from beyond the plain
Calls o'er the hills of Habersham,
And calls through the valleys of Hall.