Tom’s Big Picture

This is an enjoyable poem from Henry Timrod, one of the forgotten Southern writers of the 1800’s who were cheated of their literary legacy because their political opinions on the War Between the States were not compatible with the spirit of our age.

Right now I am enjoying a novel called The Golden Christmas by South Carolinian William Gilmore Simms (the first of a genre Simms invented, the plantation romance), a contemporary of Timrod’s. Simms may have been our country’s most prolific novelist at the time, authoring over 82 works of fiction and poetry; Edgar Allen Poe, no literary slouch himself, said that Simms was “The best novelist which this country has, on the whole, produced.”. Yet only two of his novels are in print, thankfully due to the efforts of the William Gilmore Simms Society and the University of South Carolina.

Simms’ novels are steeped in Biblical allegory- even his most famous non-fiction work, A City Laid Waste, documenting Sherman’s crimes against humanity in the capture of Columbia, SC, alludes to the book of Job. The South, in his view, was like Job- beaten, many of its residents literally in sackcloth and ashes, and everyone assumed that their fate was God’s judgment. Simms hoped his work in documenting the unprecedented evil of the Union armies under Sherman would put a lie to that notion, and that a self-confident South could re-emerge, like the phoenix, sometime in the future. With the federal government insanely commiting financial suicide with entitlements and foreign entanglements, perhaps Simms’ dream of a South restored after much abuse, like Job, is not too far off. Those whom God wishes to destroy, he first makes mad.

But I digress. Back to Timrod.

Timrod’s works are still published online, and this one is a light and pleasant one I thought many would enjoy:

A Year’s Courtship

I saw her, Harry, first, in March –
You know the street that leadeth down
By the old bridge’s crumbling arch? –
Just where it leaves the dusty town

A lonely house stands grim and dark –
You’ve seen it? then I need not say
How quaint the place is — did you mark
An ivied window? Well! one day,

I, chasing some forgotten dream,
And in a poet’s idlest mood,
Caught, as I passed, a white hand’s gleam –
A shutter opened — there she stood

Training the ivy to its prop.
Two dark eyes and a brow of snow
Flashed down upon me — did I stop? –
She says I did — I do not know.

But all that day did something glow
Just where the heart beats; frail and slight,
A germ had slipped its shell, and now
Was pushing softly for the light.

And April saw me at her feet,
Dear month of sunshine and of rain!
My very fears were sometimes sweet,
And hope was often touched with pain.

For she was frank, and she was coy,
A willful April in her ways;
And in a dream of doubtful joy
I passed some truly April days.

May came, and on that arch, sweet mouth,
The smile was graver in its play,
And, softening with the softening South,
My April melted into May.

She loved me, yet my heart would doubt,
And ere I spoke the month was June –
One warm still night we wandered out
To watch a slowly setting moon.

Something which I saw not — my eyes
Were not on heaven — a star, perchance,
Or some bright drapery of the skies,
Had caught her earnest, upper glance.

And as she paused — Hal! we have played
Upon the very spot — a fir
Just touched me with its dreamy shade,
But the full moonlight fell on her –

And as she paused — I know not why –
I longed to speak, yet could not speak;
The bashful are the boldest — I –
I stooped and gently kissed her cheek.

A murmur (else some fragrant air
Stirred softly) and the faintest start –
O Hal! we were the happiest pair!
O Hal! I clasped her heart to heart!

And kissed away some tears that gushed;
But how she trembled, timid dove,
When my soul broke its silence, flushed
With a whole burning June of love.

Since then a happy year hath sped
Through months that seemed all June and May,
And soon a March sun, overhead,
Will usher in the crowning day.

Twelve blessed moons that seemed to glow
All summer, Hal! — my peerless Kate!
She is the dearest — “Angel?” — no!
Thank God! — but you shall see her — wait.

So all is told! I count on thee
To see the Priest, Hal! Pass the wine!
Here’s to my darling wife to be!
And here’s to — when thou find’st her — thine!