RUNCIE, CONSTANCE FAUNT LE ROY. Poems, Dramatic and Lyric. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1888. 16mo, pp. 6 and 98. CHENEY, JOHN VANCE. Thistle-Duft. Second edition. New York: Frederick A. Stokes and Brother, 1888. 16m0, pp. 9 and 137. IBID. Wood Blooms. New York: Frederick A. Stokes and Brother, 1888. 16m0, pp. 12 and 222. BENSEL, JAMES BERRY. In the King's Garden and Other Poems. Boston: D. Lothrop Company. n. d. c. 1885. 16m0, pp. 103. COOLBRITH, INA D. A Perfect Day, and Other Poems. Author's special subscription edition. San Francisco: 1881. 16m0, pp. 173. REESE, LIZETTE WOODWORTH. A Branch of May. Poems. Baltimore: Cushing and Bailey, 1887. 12mo, pp. 42. FAWCETT, EDGAR. Fantasy and Passion. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1878. 16m0, pp. 11 and 191. Boston: James R. Os12mo, pp. 181. IBID. Song and Story. good and Company, 1884. IBID. The Buntling Ball. A Græco-American Play. A Social Satire. Illustrated by C. D. Weldon. New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1885. 12mo, pp. 154. IBID. The New King Arthur. An Opera Without Music. New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1885. 12mo, pp. 164. IBID. Romance and Revery. Poems. BosTicknor and Company, 1886. 12mo, pp. ton: 200. MERRILL, HELEN MAUD. Miscellaneous poems. O'MALLEY, CHARLES J. A Few Poems. An unpublished volume. SPRINGER, REBECCA RUTER. Miscellaneous poems. IBID. A Hidden Life and Other Poems. New York: Scribner, Armstrong and Company, 1872. 12mo, pp. 7 and 285. IBID. The Disciple and Other Poems. London: Straham and Company, 1868. 12m0, pp. 8 and 334. MEREDITH, GEORGE. Poems and Lyrics of the Joy of Earth. London: Macmillan and Company, 1883. 12mo, 9 and 181. IBID. Ballads and Poems of Tragic Life. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1887. 16mo, pp. 160. IBID. A Reading of Earth. London: Macmillan and Company, 1888. 16m0, pp. 7 and 136. IBID. The Pilgrim's Scrip, or Wit and Wisdom of George Meredith. With Selections from his Poetry, and an Introduction. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1888. 16m0, pp. 50 and 252. POWERS, HORATIO NELSON. Ten Years of Song. Boston: D. Lothrop Company, n. d. c. 1887. 16mo, pp. 159. Including "In the Closet and Other Poems," and "Earlier Poems." FLAGG, EDMUND. Miscellaneous poems. DORR, JULIA C. R. Afternoon Songs. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1885. 16m0. CRAIK, DINAH MARIA MULOCK. Poems. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell and Company, 12mo. SAXE, JOHN GODFREY. Poetical Works. Household edition, Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1887. 12mo. LUNT, GEORGE. Poems. Boston: Cupples, Upham and Company, 1884. 16mo. GARTH, PHILIP. Ballads and Poems from the Pacific. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington, 1885. 16m0. ad Flagg. THE MAGAZINE OF POETRY. VOL. I. NO. 4. 66 PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE. "IN N the month of December, 1844, died, near Columbus, Georgia, one of the truest and sweetest lyric poets this country has yet produced." So wrote Paul Hamilton Hayne in his introduction to the poems of his beloved brother poet, Frank O. Ticknor, and as I read it I thought the sympathetic artist had unconsciously drawn in it a picture of himself. The best biography of Col. Hayne that has been or is likely to be written, is the poet's "Life of Henry Timrod." That essay is one of the most beautiful and sympathetic in the language, for in portraying the poetic nature of Timrod, we see the tender, luminous and inspired soul of Hayne himself by reflection, the same as we see the lovely spirit of Robert Southey in the "Life of Cowper." Would you know the inner heart of Hayne, read his "Life of Henry Timrod." We first met Col. Hayne in Boston, after the war had ruined his fortune, and destroyed his health. It was some years before his death, but the fever of consumption was already kindling and renewing its fires. He had been to the White Hills, N. H., for his health, and his heart had been greatly elated while there amid the tonic air, but only to be depressed again by a hemorrhage on Lake Winnipisiogee. I well recall his fine intellectual and spiritual face, his officer-like bearing, his wonderful talk, his aspirations, and the expression of his sensitive sou in verse that flowed almost daily from his pen; his visit to Whittier, and his views of religious things which he unfolded to me on a Sunday walk to Trinity church. To have met him at that time was to cherish a most wonderful memory; sickness had mellowed his spirit, and brought to it an almost celestial light; his thoughts had the tinge of the future, and the passing clouds were celestial chariots. The last time that I met him, was at his cottage home at Copse Hill, Georgia, a few months before his death. It was a March evening, and he had recently sent to Harper's Magazine his last representative poem, "Face to Face." The fevers of consumption had long burned, and they had now nearly changed to ashes the fuel of life. He told me privately that he would soon die, and said that only for the sake of his beloved wife and son he would be in a hurry to go. His Christian faith lifted him, and he felt no fear. He desired to read to me his poem "Face to Face." "I wish the world to know," he said, "that this is my view of death, as a dying man." His careful wife feared that it might be too much for his strength for him to read the poem aloud. But he insisted upon doing it. I can see him now as he stood that evening before the blazing logs of the open fire, and read that wonderful and beautiful soul analysis, a poem that ought to be forever quoted when one writes of him. If the last poems of the great poet should ever be collected, "Face to Face," would stand distinct among them all. It is a tender heroism, a beautiful spirituality, a brushing of the unimprisoned wing against the rays of the eternal morning. The effect of the reading injured him; he was not able to rise on the following morning. Paul H. Hayne was born in Charleston, South Carolina, January 1st, 1830. His ancestors were distinguished both in England and in the colonial history of the Carolinas. The famous orator and statesman, Robert Y. Hayne, governor and United States Senator, was his uncle. He was graduated from Charleston College. He was a poet from youth. The Attic bees hummed about his cradle by the southern sea, and like Cowley, he "lisped in numbers." He was early brought under the influence of William Gilmore Simms, the novelist and poet, the Fenimore Cooper of the South. There was a distinct literary period in Charles-, ton at this time, as distinct as that of Boston in the early days of the Atlantic Monthly. Simms was the leader of it; Calhoun entered into it; Legaré, Timrod and Hayne were its principal members. The literary coterie established a magazine, and young Hayne was appointed the editor. So his literary life began, a life whose influence for good was destined to be felt in every American household. His first volume of poems was published by the old house of Ticknor & Co., Boston, when he was twenty-five years of age. His poetry now began to enter into magazine literature, and collection Copyright, 1889, by CHARLES WELLS MOULTON, All rights reserved. Col. after collection was made. The war came. Hayne became an aid of Gov. Pickens, and a member of his staff. During the bombardment of Charleston, his beautiful home and its valuable library were destroyed. The war left poor the long enriched family. Col. Hayne's health began to be seriously impaired, and he built him a cottage in the seclusion of the pine barrens at Copse Hill, near Augusta, Ga., at Groveton, where the work of his last years was done. Col. Hayne was blessed with a true, noble and sympathetic wife, who was the heart of his life, and who entered into all of his work with clear judgment and appreciative sympathy. Her maiden name was Mary Middleton Michel, a name well known among the most honored families of the South. She was the daughter of a French Huguenot, who rendered distinguished services as a physician to the French army under Napoleon. She still lives at Copse Hill, Ga. She is a clear-sighted but generous critic of the literature of the times, especially of poetry. She will ever be beloved by the public for what she was to the poet in both his prosperity and in the days of his altered fortune. Col. Hayne's only son, the well known poet William H. Hayne, who inherits his father's insights of nature and culture in art, lives with his mother at Copse Hill. Paul H. Hayne is the representative poet of the South, the Longfellow of the new land of literary inspiration and art. He will always hold this place among the poets of the past. He thoroughly believed in the divine callings of the poet, and that the true poet was the voice of the seer crying in the wilderness of the world. He held the calling to be the highest among men. He saw nature and the soul with a prophet's eyes, and his heart went out to humanity, and he wrote to make the whole world better and to add to its happiness and hope. His works are pure and Christian. They express what the South once was. They voice and picture the Carolinas of the past. The son of the poet sees a new age, and stands at the door of a new era. May Heaven long bless the cottage home at Copse Hill. FACE TO FACE. SAD mortal! couldst thou but know What truly it means to die, The wings of thy soul would glow, And the hopes of thy heart beat high: H. B. I gaze on the glory of love I tell thee his face is fair As the moon-bow's amber rings, And the gleam in his unbound hair Like the flush of a thousand Springs: His smile is the fathomless beam Of the star-shine's sacred light, In a kingdom of halcyon breath - In his eyes a heaven there dwells — But they hold few mysteries now — And his pity for earth's farewells Half furrows that shining brow; Souls taken from Time's cold tide He folds to his fostering breast, And the tears of their grief are dried Ere they enter the courts of rest: And still, earth's madness above, In a kingdom of stormless breath, I gaze on a light that is love In the unveiled face of Death. Through the splendor of stars impearled In the glow of their far-off grace, He is soaring world by world, With the souls in his strong embrace; Lone ethers, unstirred by a wind, At the passage of Death grow sweet, With the fragrance that floats behind The flash of his winged retreat: And I, earth's madness above, 'Mid a kingdom of tranquil breath, Have gazed on the lustre of love In the unveiled face of Death. But beyond the stars and the sun Thrill down from the place of souls, As Death, with a touch like flame, Uncloses the goal of goals: And from heaven of heavens above God speaketh with bateless breath My angel of perfect love Is the angel men call Death! |