A writer on Southern poets heads his article on one of the most gifted
of our children of song, "Henry Timrod, the Unfortunate Singer."
At first glance the title may seem appropriate. Viewed by the standard
set up by the world, there was little of the wine of success in
Timrod's cup of life. Bitter drafts of the waters of Marah were served
to him in the iron goblet of Fate. But he lived. Of how many of the
so-called favorites of Fortune could that be said? Through the mists
of his twilit life, he caught glimpses of a sun-radiant morning of
wondrous glory.
Thirty years after Timrod's death a Northern critic, writing of the
new birth of interest in Timrod's work, said: "Time is the ideal
editor." Surely, Editor Time's blue pencil has dealt kindly with our
flame-born poet.
In Charleston, December 8, 1829, the "little blue-eyed boy" of his
father's verse first opened his eyes upon a world that would give him
all its beauty and much of its sadness, verifying the paternal
prophecy:
And thy full share of misery
Must fall in life on thee!
In early childhood he was destined to lose the loving father to whom
his "shouts of joy" were the sweetest strain in life's harmony.
Henry Timrod and Paul Hayne, within a month of the same age, were
seat-mates in school. Writing of him many years later, Hayne tells of
the time that Timrod made the thrilling discovery that he was a poet;
that being, perhaps, the most exciting epoch in any life. Coming into
school one morning, he showed Paul his first attempt at verse-writing,
which Hayne describes as "a ballad of stirring adventures and
sanguinary catastrophe," which he thought wonderful, the youthful
author, of course, sharing that conviction. Convictions are easy at
thirteen, even when one has not the glamour of the sea and the romance
of old Charleston to prepare the soul for their riveting.
Unfortunately, the teacher of that school thus honored by the presence
of two budding poets had not a mind attuned to poesy. Seeing the boys
communing together in violation of the rules made and provided for
school discipline, he promptly and sharply recalled them to the
subjects wisely laid down in the curriculum. Notwithstanding this
early discouragement, the youthful poet, abetted by his faithful
fellow song-bird, persevered in his erratic way, and Charleston had
the honor of being the home of one who has been regarded as the most
brilliant of Southern poets.
When Henry Timrod finished his course of study in the chilling
atmosphere in which his poetic ambition first essayed to put forth its
tender leaflets, he entered Franklin College, in Athens, the nucleus
of what is now the University of Georgia. A few years ago a visitor
saw his name in pencil on a wall of the old college. The "Toombs oak"
still stood on the college grounds, and it may be that its whispering
leaves brought to the youthful poet messages of patriotism which they
had garnered from the lips of the embryonic Georgia politician. Timrod
spent only a year in the college, quitting his studies partly because
his health failed, and partly because the family purse was not equal
to his scholastic ambition.
Returning to Charleston at a time when that city cherished the
ambition to become to the South what Boston was to the North, he
helped form the coterie of writers who followed the leadership of that
burly and sometimes burry old Mentor, William Gilmore Simms. The young
poet seems not to have been among the docile members of the flock, for
when Timrod's first volume of poems was published Hayne wrote to
Simms, requesting him to write a notice of Timrod's work, not that he
(Timrod) deserved it of Simms, but that he (Hayne) asked it of him. It
may be that Timrod's recognition of the fact that he could write
poetry and that Simms could only try to write it led to a degree of
youthful assumption which clashed with the dignity of the older man.
The Nestor of Southern literature seems not to have cherished
animosity, for he not only noticed Timrod favorably, but in after
years, when the poet's misfortunes pressed most heavily upon him, made
every possible exertion to give him practical and much needed
assistance.
Upon his return from college, Timrod, with some dim fancies concerning
a forensic career circling around the remote edges of his imagination,
entered the office of his friend, Judge Petigru. The "irrepressible
conflict" between Law and Poesy that has been waged through the
generations broke forth anew, and Timrod made the opposite choice from
that reached by Blackstone. Judging from the character of the rhythmic
composition in which the great expounder of English law took leave of
the Lyric Muse, his decision was a judicious one. Doubtless that of
our poet was equally discreet. When the Club used to gather in
Russell's book-shop on King Street, Judge Petigru and his recalcitrant
protégé had many pleasant meetings, unmarred by differences as to the
relative importance of the Rule in Shelley's Case and the flight of
Shelley's Lark.
Henry Timrod was thrust into the literary life of Charleston at a time
when that life was most full of impelling force. It was a Charleston
filled with memories quite remote from the poetry and imaginative
literature which represented life to the youthful writers. It was a
Charleston with an imposing background of history and oratory,
forensic and legislative, against which the poetry and imagination of
the new-comers glittered capriciously, like the glimmering of
fireflies against the background of night, with swift, uncertain
vividness that suggested the early extinguishing of those quivering
lamps. But the heart of Charleston was kindled with a new ambition,
and the new men brought promise of its fulfilment.
Others have given us a view of the literary life of Charleston, of her
social position, of her place in the long procession of history. To
Timrod it was left to give us martial Charleston, "girt without and
garrisoned at home," looking "from roof and spire and dome across her
tranquil bay." With him, we see her while
Calm as that second summer which precedes
The first fall of the snow,
In the broad sunlight of heroic deeds
The City bides the foe.