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 soon! You'll do me more good than medicines!" etc.
On the 25th of the month confidence in Timrod's recovery was confirmed by a letter from Mrs. Goodwin:—
"Our brother," she writes, "is decidedly better; and if there be no recurrence of the hemorrhage will, I hope, be soon convalescent!"
A week and upwards passed on in silence. I received no more communications from Columbia. But early in October a vaguely threatening report reached my ears. On the 9th it was mournfully confirmed. Forty-eight hours before, Henry Timrod had expired!
On the 7th of October, the mortal remains of the poet, so worn and shattered, were buried in the cemetery of Trinity Church, Columbia.
There, in the ruined capital of his native State, whence scholarship, culture, and social purity have been banished to give place to the orgies of semi-barbarians and the political trickery of adventurers and traitors; there, tranquil amid the vulgar turmoil of factions, reposes the dust of one of the truest and sweetest singers this country has given to the world.