"Come out and hear the waters shoot, the owlet hoot, the owlet hoot;
Yon crescent moon, a golden boat, hangs dim behind the tree, O!
The dropping thorn makes white the grass, O! sweetest lass,
and sweetest lass
Come out and smell the ricks of hay adown the croft with me, O!"
With but a slight effort of memory I can vividly recall his voice and
manner in repeating these simple yet beautiful lines.
They were the last verses I ever heard from the poet's lips.
Just as the woods were assuming their first delicate autumnal tints,
Timrod took his leave of us. In a conversation on the night but one
previous to his departure, we had been speaking of Dr. Parr and other
literary persons of unusual age, when he observed: "I haven't the
slightest desire, P----, to be an octogenarian, far less a centenarian,
like old Parr; but I hope that I may be spared until I am _FIFTY_ or
fifty-five."
"About Shakespeare's age," I suggested.
"Oh!" he replied, smiling, "I was not thinking of _THAT_; but I'm sure
that after fifty-five I would begin to wither, mind and body, and one
hates the idea of a mummy, intellectual or physical. Do you remember
that picture of extreme old age which Charles Reade gives us in 'Never
Too Late to Mend'? George Fielding, the hero, is about going away from
England to try his luck in Australia. All his friends and relations are
around him, expressing their sorrow at his enforced voyage; all but
his grandfather, aged ninety-two, who sits stolid and mumbling in his
armchair.
"'Grandfather!' shouts George into the deafened ears, 'I'm going a long
journey; mayhap shall never see you again; speak a word to me before I
go!' Grandfather looks up, brightens for a moment, and cackles feebly
out: 'George, fetch me some _SNUFF_ from where you're going. See now'
(half whimpering), 'I'm out of snuff.' A good point in the way of
illustration, but not a pleasant picture."
On the 13th of September, ten days after Timrod's return to Columbia, he
wrote me the following note:--
"Dear P----: I have been too sick to write before, and am still too sick
to drop you more than a few lines. You will be surprised and pained to
hear that I have had a severe hemorrhage of the lungs.
"I did not come home an instant too soon. I found them without money or
provisions. Fortunately I brought with me a small sum. I won't tell you
how small, but six dollars of it was from the editor of the 'Opinion'
for my last poem.
"I left your climate to my injury. But not only for the sake of my
health, I begin already to look back with longing regret to 'Copse
Hill'. You have all made me feel as if I had TWO beloved homes!
"I wish that I could divide myself between them; or that I had wings, so
that I might flit from one to other in a moment.
"I hope soon to write you at length. Yours," etc.