d
splendor of nature, bright prophecy and intuition of immortality, is to
come the sudden, solemn mystery of the whisper, "He is gone!" And so
it was. For as the sun broadened into glad day, and the full radiance
illumined and animated earth and sea and sky, "as it purpled in the
zenith, as it brightened on the lawn," this rich young life, in its own
fresh morning of genius and spiritual sunshine, passed, and in his own
triumphant words,--

"not dies, no more than Spirit dies;
But in a change like death was clothed with wings."

The Late Judge George S. Bryan

It would not be fitting that this memorial edition of Timrod's Poems
should go forth to the world without proper recognition, on the part
of the TIMROD MEMORIAL ASSOCIATION, of the relation occupied and the
services rendered to the poet in his lifetime by the late Hon. George
S. Bryan, of Charleston. During the whole of Timrod's career Judge Bryan
was his devoted friend, ever ready to assist him materially, morally,
and in every other respect.

His faith in Timrod's genius never wavered, and but for his early
assistance, sympathy, and encouragement, much of the fruit of that
genius would have been lost or wasted. He helped him in adversity,
cheered him in his hours of anxiety and despondency, and from first to
last, throughout the literary and spiritual history of the poet, he
did more than any other friend to keep alive in his heart the steadfast
flame of faith in his poetic destiny; Judge Bryan's name must always
be inseparably connected with Henry Timrod's in the literary annals of
South Carolina.

January, 1899.

POEMS OF HENRY TIMROD

Spring

Spring, with that nameless pathos in the air
Which dwells with all things fair,
Spring, with her golden suns and silver rain,
Is with us once again.

Out in the lonely woods the jasmine burns
Its fragrant lamps, and turns
Into a royal court with green festoons
The banks of dark lagoons.

In the deep heart of every forest tree
The blood is all aglee,
And there's a look about the leafless bowers
As if they dreamed of flowers.

Yet still on every side we trace the hand
Of Winter in the land,
Save where the maple reddens on the lawn,
Flushed by the season's dawn;

Or where, like those strange semblances we find
That age to childhood bind,
The elm puts on,