cottage of boards on a hill in the midst of a few acres of pine-land near Augusta; and here, until his death, he toiled with his pen to support his family. His works include Poems (1855); Sonnets and other Poems (1857); Avolio, a Legend of the Island of Cos (1859); Legends and Lyrics (1872); The Mountain of the Lovers, and other Poems (1873); Life of Robert Y. Hayne (1878); Life of Hugh S. Legaré (1878); a complete edition of his Poems (1882). In 1872 he published the poems of his friend Henry Timrod, to which he prefixed a Memoir; and at his death he left enough manuscript to make two or three volumes more of his own works. Among his lectures, the most noteworthy is The Literature of Imagination.

It ought to be said that the touching sonnet to Carolina was written during the period of reconstruction, when, as the author thought, the fame of the great statesmen and orators of his native State was "fast becoming a mere shadowy tradition." And of his Whittier it has been written, that "among all the attempts to describe the personal bearing of that unique and venerable figure in our literature, there has been none quite so good as this from the shy, sensitive, passionate South Carolinian."

CAROLINA.

That fair young land which gave me birth is dead! Lost as a fallen star that quivering dies

Down the pale pathway of autumnal skies,

A vague, faint radiance flickering where it fled;
All she hath wrought, all she hath planned or said,
Her golden eloquence, her high emprise

Wrecked, on the languid shore of Lethe lies,
While cold Oblivion veils her piteous head:

O mother! loved and loveliest! debonair
As some brave queen of antique chivalries.
Thy beauty's blasted like thy desolate coasts ;-
Where now thy lustrous form, thy shining hair?
Where thy bright presence, thine imperial eyes?
Lost in dim shadows of the realm of Ghosts!
-From Poems, 1882.

WHITTIER.

So, 'neath the Quaker-poet's tranquil roof,
From all dull discords of the world aloof,
I sit once more, and measured converse hold
With him whose nobler thoughts are rhythmic gold.

See his deep brows half puckered in a knot
O'er some hard problem of our mortal lot,
Or a dream, soft as May winds of the South,
Waft a girl's sweetness round his firm-set mouth.

Or should he deem wrong threats, the public weal,
Lo! the whole man seems girt with flashing steel;
His glance a sword-thrust, and his words of ire
Like thunder-tones from some old prophet's lyre.

Or by the hearth-stone when the day is done,
Mark, swiftly launched, a sudden shaft of fun;
The short quick laugh, the smartly smitten knees,
And all sure tokens of a mind at ease.

Discerning which, by some mysterious law,
Near to his seat two household favorites draw,
Till on her master's shoulders, sly and sleek,
Grimalkin, mounting, rubs his furrowed cheek;

While terrier Dick, denied all words to rail,
Snarls as he shakes a short protesting tail,
But with shrewd eyes says, plain as plain can be,
"Drop that shy cat. I'm worthier far than she."

And he who loves all lowliest lives to please,
Conciliates soon his dumb Diogenes,
Who in return his garment nips with care,
And drags the poet out, to take the air.

God's innocent pensioners in the woodlands dim,
The fields and pastures, know and trust in him;
And in their love his lonely heart is blessed,
Our pure, hale-minded Cowper of the West!
-From Poems, 1882.

FAITH.

Would ye be worthy of your sires who on King's Mountain side

Welcomed dark Death for Freedom's sake as bride

grooms clasp a bride?

Then must your faith be winged above the world, the worm, the clod,

To own the veiled infinitudes and plumbless depths of

God!

The roughest rider of my day shrank from the atheist's

sneer,

As if Iscariot's self were crouched and whispering at his

ear;

The stormiest souls that ever led our mountain forays wild

Would ofttimes show the simple trust, the credence, of a child.

True faith goes hand in hand with power-faith in a holier charm

Than fires the subtlest mortal brain, the mightiest mortal arm;

And though 'tis right in stress of fight "to keep one's powder dry,"

What strength to feel, beyond our steel, burns the Great Captain's eye!

-From The Battle of King's Mountain, Harper's Magazine, 1880.

ASPECTS OF THE PINES.

Tall, sombre, grim, against the morning sky
They rise, scarce touched by melancholy airs,
Which stir the fadeless foliage dreamfully,
As if from realms of mystical despairs.

Tall, sombre, grim, they stand with dusky gleams
Brightening to gold within the woodland's core,
Beneath the gracious noontide's tranquil beams-
But the weird winds of morning sigh no more,
VOL. XIII.-4

A stillness strange, divine, ineffable,

Broods round and o'er them in the wind's surcease, And on each tinted copse aad shimmering dell Rests the mute rapture of deep-hearted peace. -From the Atlantic Monthly, 1872.

From garish light and life apart,
Shrined in the woodland's secret heart,
With delicate mists of morning furled
Fantastic o'er its shadowy world,
The lake, a vaporous vision, gleams
So vaguely bright, my fancy deems
'Tis but an airy lake of dreams.

Dreamlike, in curves of palest gold,
The wavering mist-wreaths manifold
Part in long rifts, through which I view
Gray islets throned in tides as blue
As if a piece of heaven withdrawn-
Whence hints of sunrise touch the dawn—
Had brought to earth its sapphire glow,
And smiled, a second heaven, below.

Dreamlike, in fitful, murmurous sighs,
I hear the distant west wind rise,
And, down the hollows wandering, break
In gurgling ripples on the lake,

Round which the vapors, still outspread,
Mount wanly widening overhead,

Till flushed by morning's primrose red.

Dreamlike, each slow, soft pulsing surge
Hath lapped the calm lake's emerald verge,
Sending, where'er its tremors pass

Low whisperings through the dew-wet grass,
Faint thrills of fairy sound that creep
To fall in neighboring nooks asleep,
Or melt in rich, low warblings made
By some winged Ariel of the glade.

With brightening morn the mockbird's lay
Grows stronger, mellower; far away

Mid dusky reeds, which even the noon
Lights not, the lonely hearted loon
Makes answer, her shrill music shorn
Of half its sadness; day, full-born,
Doth rout all sounds and sights forlorn.

Ah! still a something strange and rare
O'errules this tranquil earth and air,
Casting o'er both a glamour known.
To their enchanted realm alone;
Whence shines, as 'twere a spirit's face,
The sweet, coy genius of the place,
Yon lake beheld as if in trance,
The beauty of whose shy romance

I feel-whatever shores and skies

May charm henceforth my wondering eyes,
Shall rest, undimmed by taint or stain,
'Mid lonely byways of the brain,
There, with its haunting grace, to seem
Set in the landscape of a dream.

PRE-EXISTENCE.

While sauntering through the crowded street, Some half remembered face I meet.

Albeit upon no mortal shore,

That face, methinks, has smiled before.

Lost in a gay and festal throng,
I tremble at some tender song,

Set to an air whose golden bars
I must have heard in other stars.

In sacred aisles I pause to share
The blessings of a priestly prayer.

When the whole scene which greets mine eyes,

In some strange mood I recognize,

As one whose every mystic part
I feel pre-figured in my heart.