The Poems of Henry Timrod   By: Henry Timrod (1828-1867)

By Henry Timrod

With Memoir

Contents

Introduction The Late Judge George S. Bryan

Spring The Cotton Boll Præceptor Amat The Problem A Year's Courtship Serenade Youth and Manhood Hark to the Shouting Wind Too Long, O Spirit of Storm The Lily Confidante The Stream is Flowing from the West Vox et Præterea Nihil Madeline A Dedication Katie Why Silent? Two Portraits La Belle Juive An Exotic The Rosebuds A Mother's Wail Our Willie Address Delivered at the Opening of the New Theatre at Richmond A Vision of Poesy The Past Dreams The Arctic Voyager Dramatic Fragment The Summer Bower A Rhapsody of a Southern Winter Night Flower Life A Summer Shower Baby's Age The Messenger Rose On Pressing Some Flowers 1866 Addressed to the Old Year Stanzas: A Mother Gazes Upon Her Daughter, Arrayed for an Approaching Bridal. Written in Illustration of a Tableau Vivant Hymn Sung at an Anniversary of the Asylum of Orphans at Charleston To a Captive Owl Love's Logic Second Love Hymn Sung at the Consecration of Magnolia Cemetery, Charleston, S.C. Hymn Sung at a Sacred Concert at Columbia, S.C. Lines to R. L. To Whom? To Thee Storm and Calm Retirement A Common Thought

Poems Written in War Times

Carolina A Cry to Arms Charleston Ripley Ethnogenesis Carmen Triumphale The Unknown Dead The Two Armies Christmas Ode Sung on the Occasion of Decorating the Graves of the Confederate Dead, at Magnolia Cemetery, Charleston, S.C., 1867

Sonnets

I "Poet! If on a Lasting Fame Be Bent" II "Most Men Know Love But as a Part of Life" III "Life Ever Seems as from Its Present Site" IV "They Dub Thee Idler, Smiling Sneeringly" V "Some Truths There Be Are Better Left Unsaid" VI "I Scarcely Grieve, O Nature! at the Lot" VII "Grief Dies Like Joy; the Tears Upon My Cheek" VIII "At Last, Beloved Nature! I Have Met" IX "I Know Not Why, But All This Weary Day" X "Were I the Poet Laureate of the Fairies" XI "Which Are the Clouds, and Which the Mountains? See" XII "What Gossamer Lures Thee Now? What Hope, What Name" XIII "I Thank You, Kind and Best Beloved Friend" XIV "Are These Wild Thoughts, Thus Fettered in My Rhymes" XV In Memoriam Harris Simons

Poems Now First Collected

Song Composed for Washington's Birthday, and Respectfully Inscribed to the Officers and Members of the Washington Light Infantry of Charleston, February 22, 1859

A Bouquet Lines: "I Stooped from Star Bright Regions" A Trifle Lines: "I Saw, or Dreamed I Saw, Her Sitting Lone" Sonnet: "If I Have Graced No Single Song of Mine" To Rosa : Acrostic Dedication

Introduction

"A true poet is one of the most precious gifts that can be bestowed on a generation." He speaks for it and he speaks to it. Reflecting and interpreting his age and its thoughts, feelings, and purposes, he speaks for it; and with a love of truth, with a keener moral insight into the universal heart of man, and with the intuition of inspiration, he speaks to it, and through it to the world. It is thus

"The poet to the whole wide world belongs, Even as the Teacher is the child's."

"Nor is it to the great masters alone that our homage and thankfulness are due. Wherever a true child of song strikes his harp, we love to listen. All that we ask is that the music be native, born of impassioned impulse that will not be denied, heartfelt, like the lark when she soars up to greet the morning and pours out her song by the same quivering ecstasy that impels her flight." For though the voices be many, the oracle is one, for "God gave the poet his song."