"There’s but a faint sobbing seaward / While the calm of the tide deepens leeward"

[larryhammer]

When we lived on Hayne Street, I had fun explaining that it was named after a deservedly obscure antebellum poet. Er, localization note: in the States, "antebellum" means strictly before our Civil War of 1861-65, with the strong connotation of pertaining to the southeastern states that became the Confederacy* -- in Paul Hamilton Hayne's case, South Carolina.

Anyway, one of the pleasures of reading older anthologies** is finding recent-to-then poems that are good but have since been forgotten by the canon. The poem of Hayne's that lasted the longest, and was still being anthologized in the early 20th century, is "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.

A stillness, strange, divine, ineffable,
    Broods round and o’er them in the wind’s surcease,
And on each tinted copse and shimmering dell
    Rests the mute rapture of deep hearted peace.

Last, sunset comes—the solemn joy and might
    Borne from the west when cloudless day declines—
Low, flute-like breezes sweep the waves of light,
    And, lifting dark green tresses of the pines,

Till every lock is luminous, gently float,
    Fraught with hale odors up the heavens afar,
To faint when twilight on her virginal throat
    Wears for a gem the tremulous vesper star.

As you can see, very Romantic influenced, almost Keatsian in places -- but it doesn't quite manage to sustain the effect. Competent and readable, and yet -- and yet.

From what I've read of him, and I dug up a good sampling when we lived on his street, this is about the best Hayne got. Not a terrible poet, but deservedly obscure indeed.


* I've never understood why it's called that instead of the Confederation.

** Along from the delightful stinker, of course.

---L.

Subject quote from "In Harbor," Paul Hamilton Hayne.

Comments

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

The title on your post makes me twitch a little, because I learned the old nautical pronunciation of "leeward," which does not rhyme with "seaward." :-P

[larryhammer]

It makes me twitch a little without even knowing that.

(What does leeward rhyme with?)

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

"Sewered" maybe? It's "loo'ard."

"Confederacy" has a negative connotation of conspiracy or illegal collusion. "Confederation" is legitimate.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

What movingfinger said, right down to "sewered" being the only rhyme that springs to mind. :-) Which of course makes me wonder what kind of poem would use that rhyme -- something about not wanting to be leeward of badly-sewered London, perhaps . . . .

[larryhammer]

LOL