HENRY TIMROD.

Born 1829-died 1867.

CHARLESTON.

CALM as that second summer which precedes
The first fall of the snow,

In the broad sunlight of heroic deeds
The city bides the foe.

As yet, behind their ramparts, stern and proud,
Her bolted thunders sleep,-

Dark Sumter, like a battlemented cloud,
Looms o'er the solemn deep.

No Calpe frowns from lofty cliff or scaur
To guard the holy strand;

But Moultrie holds in leash her dogs of war,
Above the level sand.

And down the dunes a thousand guns lie couch'd,

Unseen, beside the flood,

Like tigers in some Orient jungle crouch'd,
That wait and watch for blood.

Meanwhile, through streets still echoing with trade,
Walk grave and thoughtful men,

Whose hands may one day wield the patriot's blade
As lightly as the pen.

And maidens, with such eyes as would grow dim
Over a bleeding hound,

Seem each one to have caught the strength of him
Whose sword she sadly bound.

Thus girt without and garrison'd at home,

Day patient following day,

Old Charleston looks from roof, and spire, and dome, Across her tranquil bay.

Ships, through a hundred foes, from Saxon lands

And spicy Indian ports,

Bring Saxon steel and iron to her hands,

And summer to her courts.

But still, along yon dim Atlantic line,

The only hostile smoke

Creeps like a harmless mist above the brine,

From some frail, floating oak.

Shall the spring dawn, and she still clad in smiles, And with an unscathed brow,

Rest in the strong arms of her palm-crown'd isles,
As fair and free as now?

We know not; in the temple of the Fates
God has inscribed her doom;

And, all untroubled in her faith, she waits
The triumph or the tomb.

THE UNKNOWN DEAD.

THE rain is plashing on my sill,
But all the winds of Heaven are still;
And so, it falls with that dull sound
Which thrills us in the churchyard ground,
When the first spadeful drops like lead
Upon the coffin of the dead.

Beyond my streaming window-pane,
I cannot see the neighbouring vane,
Yet from its old familiar tower

The bell comes, muffled, through the shower.
What strange and unsuspected link
Of feeling touch'd has made me think-
While with a vacant soul and eye
I watch that gray and stony sky-
Of nameless graves on battle-plains,
Wash'd by a single winter's rains,
Where, some beneath Virginian hills,
And some by green Atlantic rills,

Some by the waters of the West,
A myriad unknown heroes rest?
Ah! not the chiefs who, dying, see
Their flags in front of victory,
Or, at their life-blood's noblest cost
Paid for a battle nobly lost,

Claim from their monumental beds
The bitterest tears a nation sheds.
Beneath yon lonely mound-the spot
By all save some fond few forgot—
Lie the true martyrs of the fight,
Which strikes for freedom and for right.
Of them, their patriot zeal and pride,
The lofty faith that with them died,
No grateful page shall further tell
Than that so many bravely fell;
And we can only dimly guess

What worlds of all this world's distress,
What utter woe, despair, and dearth,
Their fate has brought to many a hearth.
Just such a sky as this should weep
Above them, always, where they sleep;
Yet, haply, at this very hour,

Their graves are like a lover's bower;
And Nature's self, with eyes unwet,
Oblivious of the crimson debt

To which she owes her April grace,
Laughs gayly o'er their burial-place.

JOHN ESTEN COOKE.
Born at Winchester, Virginia, 1830-

MAY.

HAS the old glory pass'd

From tender May

That never the echoing blast
Of bugle-horns merry, and fast
Dying away like the past,

Welcomes the day?

Has the old beauty gone
From golden May-

That not any more at dawn
Over the flowery lawn,

Or knolls of the forest withdrawn,
Maids are at play?

Is the old freshness dead
Of the fairy May?-

Ah! the sad tear-drops unshed!
Ah! the young maidens unwed!
Golden locks-cheeks rosy red-
Ah! where are they?

PAUL H. HAYNE.

Born at Charleston, South Carolina, 1831—

THE GOLDEN AGE.

A SHIP with lofty prow came down
To Latium's strand-

A God had burst from sever'd chains,
To rule the land.

Plenty and smiling Peace sprung up
Beneath his tread,-

Earth blossom'd like Hesperian fields,—
Discord was dead.

Heaven with its calm supernal light
Had bless'd the spot,—

And Misery in the enchanted realm
Durst enter not.

Life pass'd away like holy dreams
On spring-tide eves,-

And melted as the sunset melts
From violet leaves.

From haunted wood-shades genii flew,
In twilight dim,—

Nature and human hearts drank deep
Their 'wildering hymn.

Earth, air, and heaven, entranced were,-
A cloudless clime

Hung, like transparent dews, around
That Golden Time.

Those golden years have pass'd, to come
In purer light,-

Their hopes that sleep, but are not dead,
Will chase the night.

Time from the dungeon vault of Sin
Will strongly burst,

And glorious in his wrath cast off
His chains accurst.

A God will reach from viewless realms
This mortal shore,-

And dark-robed Misery flee his face
For evermore.

THE WHY OF A BLUSH.

Two maples by the cottage porch
Grew crimson in the sunset light;
Was it their leaves' reflected glow
Which made her perfect face so bright?

I led her gently down the steps,

And down the pathway's flickering shade, But still o'er tender cheek and brow

The same deep radiance warmly play'd.

"Enough, O Sweet!" I whisper'd low;
"That heart is mine I yearn'd to win:
No sunset flush, but love's pure dawn,

Breaks from the kindled soul within!