We see her in those dark days before the plunge into the darkness has been taken, as

    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.

Thus he gives us the picture of the beautiful city of his love as

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

Hayne said that of all who shared the suppers at the hospitable home of Simms in Charleston none perhaps enjoyed them as vividly as Timrod.  He chooses the word that well applies to Timrod’s life in all its variations.  He was vivid in all that he did.  Being little of a talker, he was always a vivid listener, and when he spoke, his words leaped forth like a flame.

Russell’s book-shop, where the Club used to spend their afternoons in pleasant conversation and discourse of future work, was a place of keen interest to Timrod, and when their discussions resulted in the establishment of Russell’s Magazine he was one of the most enthusiastic contributors to the ambitious publication.

While Charleston was not the place of what would be called Timrod’s most successful life, it was the scene in which he reached his highest exemplification of Browning’s definition of poetry:  “A presentment of the correspondence of the universe to the Deity, of the natural to the spiritual, and of the actual to the ideal.”

In the environments of Charleston he roamed with his Nature-worshipping mother, who taught him the beauties of clouds and trees and streams and flowers, the glory of the changeful pageantry of the sky, the exquisite grace of the bird atilt on a swaying branch.  Through the glowing picture which Nature unfolded before him he looked into the heart of the truth symbolized there and gave us messages from woods and sky and sea.  While it may be said that a poet can make his own environment, yet he is fortunate who finds his place where nature has done so much to fit the outward scene to the inward longing.

In Charleston he met “Katie, the Fair Saxon,” brown-eyed and with

    Entangled in her golden hair
    Some English sunshine, warmth and air.

He straightway entered into the kingdom of Love, and that sunshine made a radiance over the few years he had left to give to love and art.

In the city of his home he answered his own “Cry to Arms” when the “festal guns” roared out their challenge.  Had his physique been as strong as his patriotism, his sword might have rivaled his pen in reflecting honor upon his beautiful city.  Even then the seeds of consumption had developed, and he was discharged from field service.  Still wishing to remain in the service of his country, he tried the work of war correspondent, reaching the front just after the battle of Shiloh.  Overcome by the horrors of the retreat, he returned to Charleston, and was soon after appointed assistant editor of the Daily South Carolinian, published in Columbia.  He removed to the capital, where his prospects became bright enough to permit his marriage to Kate Goodwin, the English girl to whom his Muse pays such glowing tribute.