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

by F. V. N. Painter

The principal piece in Timrod's first volume, to which we now return, and the longest poem he ever wrote, is entitled A Vision of Poesy. In the experience of the imaginative hero, who seems an idealized portrait of the poet himself, we find an almost unequaled presentation of the nature and uses of poetry. The spirit of Poesy, "the angel of the earth," thus explains her lofty mission:—

"And ever since that immemorial hour
When the glad morning stars together sung,
My task hath been, beneath a mightier Power,
To keep the world forever fresh and young;
I give it not its fruitage and its green,
But clothe it with a glory all unseen."

And what are the objects on which this angel of Poesy loves to dwell?
Truth, freedom, passion, she answers, and—

"All lovely things, and gentle—the sweet laugh
Of children, girlhood's kiss, and friendship's clasp,
The boy that sporteth with the old man's staff,
The baby, and the breast its fingers grasp—
All that exalts the grounds of happiness,
All griefs that hallow, and all joys that bless,

"To me are sacred; at my holy shrine
Love breathes its latest dreams, its earliest hints;
I turn life's tasteless waters into wine,
And flush them through and through with purple tints.
Wherever earth is fair, and heaven looks down,
I rear my altars, and I wear my crown."

Many of the poems in this first volume are worthy of note, as revealing some phase of the poet's versatile gifts—delicate fancy, simplicity and truth, lucid force, or finished art. The Lily Confidante, is a light, lilting fancy, the moral of which is:—

"Love's the lover's only magic,
Truth the very subtlest art;
Love that feigns, and lips that flatter,
Win no modest heart."

The Past was first published in the Southern Literary Messenger, and afterwards went the rounds of the press. It teaches the important truth that we are the sum of all we have lived through. The past forms the atmosphere which we breathe today; it is—

"A shadowy land, where joy and sorrow kiss,
Each still to each corrective and relief,
Where dim delights are brightened into bliss,
And nothing wholly perishes but grief.

"Ah me!—not dies—no more than spirit dies;
But in a change like death is clothed with wings;
A serious angel, with entranced eyes,
Looking to far-off and celestial things."