[205]
Moved like a stately queen,
So rife with conscious beauty all the while,
What could she do but smile
At her own perfect loveliness below,
Glassed in the tranquil flow
Of crystal fountains and unruffled streams?
This is evidently the composition of a conscientious practitioner of English verse rather than the song of a poet who cannot help singing.
The verse of
Henry Timrod,
Hayne's contemporary and friend, is far more rugged, more characteristic of the
South, more personal.
Even in descriptive passages there is a certain sweep and vigor which
Hayne's style altogether lacks:--
Through lands which look one sea of billowy gold
Broad rivers wind their devious ways;
A hundred isles in their embraces fold
A hundred luminous bays;
And through yon purple haze
Vast mountains lift their plumed peaks cloud-crowned.
These lines are quoted from
Timrod's best poem,
The Cotton Boll, a rhapsody upon the
South, which concludes with a characteristically stirring defiance of the
North:--
