"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."
Such was Henry Timrod, the Southern poet. A child of nature, his song
is the voice of the Southland. Born in Charleston, S.C., December 8th,
1829, his life cast in the seething torrent of civil war, his voice was
also the voice of Carolina, and through her of the South, in all the
rich glad life poured out in patriotic pride into that fatal struggle,
in all the valor and endurance of that dark conflict, in all the gloom
of its disaster, and in all the sacred tenderness that clings about its
memories. He was the poet of the Lost Cause, the finest interpreter of
the feelings and traditions of the splendid heroism of a brave people.
Moreover, by his catholic spirit, his wide range, and world-wide
sympathies, he is a true American poet.
The purpose of the _TIMROD MEMORIAL ASSOCIATION_ of his native city and
State, in undertaking this new edition of his poems, is to erect a
suitable public memorial to the poet, and also to let his own words
renew and keep his own memory in his land's literature.
The earliest edition of Timrod's poems was a small volume by Ticknor &
Fields, of Boston, in 1860, just before the Civil War. This contained
only the poems of the first eight or nine years previous, and was warmly
welcomed North and South. The "New York Tribune" then greeted this small
first volume in these words: "These poems are worthy of a wide audience,
and they form a welcome offering to the common literature of our
country."
In this first volume was evinced the culture, the lively fancy, the
delicate and vigorous imagination, and the finished artistic power
of his mind, even then rejoicing in the fullness and freshness of its
creations and in the unwearied flow of its natural music. But it fell
then on the great world of letters almost unheeded, shut out by the war
cloud that soon broke upon the land, enveloping all in darkness.
The edition of his complete poems was not issued until the South was
recovering from the ravage of war, and was entitled "The Poems of Henry
Timrod, edited with a sketch of the Poet's life by Paul H. Hayne. E. J.
Hale & Son, publishers, New York, 1873." And immediately, in 1874, there
followed a second edition of this volume, which contained the noble
series of war poems and other lyrics written since the edition of 1860.
In 1884 an illustrated edition of "Katie" was published by Hale & Son,
New York. All of these editions were long ago exhausted by an admiring
public.
The present edition contains the poems of all the former editions, and
also some earlier poems not heretofore published.
The name of Timrod has been closely identified with the history of South
Carolina for over a century. Before the Revolution, Henry Timrod, of
German birth, the founder of the family in America, was a prominent
citizen of Charleston, and the president of that historic association,
the German Friendly Society, still existing, a century and a quarter
old. We find his name first on the roll of the German Fusiliers of
Charleston, volunteers formed in May, 1775, for the defense of the
country, immediately on hearing of the battle of Lexington. Again in
the succeeding generation, in the Seminole war and in the peril of
St. Augustine, the German Fusiliers were commanded by his son, Captain
William Henry Timrod, who was the father of the poet, and who himself
published a volume of poems in the early part of the century. He was
the editor of a literary periodical published in Charleston, to which
he himself largely contributed. He was of strong intellect and delicate
feelings, and an ardent patriot.
Some of the more striking of the poems of the elder Timrod are the
following. Washington Irving said of these lines that Tom Moore had
written no finer lyric:--