The writer of the ballad which the Jeffersonian presents to its readers
this month was Clara V. Dargan. She was born near Winnsboro, S. C., the
daughter of Dr. K. S. Dargan, descendant of an old Virginia family of
the highest standing. Her mother was a native Charlestonian of Huguenot
blood, and from her the poetess inherited vivacity, social charm and a
love for romance. The Dargan family was wealthy, but lost everything by
the war. Miss Dargan published many poems and short prose stories in
the periodicals of the time. In 1863, she was the literary editor of
the “Edgefield Advertiser.”
One of her stories, “Philip, My Son,” was considered by so good an
authority as Henry Timrod to be equal to any story published in
“Blackwood’s.”
“Jean to Jamie” seems to us almost the perfection of a poem of that
class. The pathos of it is so genuine, so unobtrusive and so deep that
one feels, instinctively, that the lines of the poem ran from the heart
of one who had suffered. Henry Timrod said of it, “The verse flows with
the softness of a woman’s tears.” The poem, published in 1866, has long
since been lost to current literature. Believing it to be a treasure
that ought to be recovered, we reproduce it.