To the pines of North Carolina the poet was taken, in the hope that
they might give him of their strength. But the wind-song through their
swaying branches lulled him to his last earthly sleep. On the 7th of
September the narrow stream of his earthly existence broadened and
deepened and flowed triumphantly into the great ocean of Eternal Life.




"THE POET OF THE PINES"

PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE


"Why are not your countrymen all poets, surrounded as they are by
beautiful things to inspire them?" I asked a young Swiss.

"Because," he replied, "my people are so accustomed to beauty that it
has no influence upon them."

They had never known anything but beauty: there were no sharp
contrasts to clash, flint-like, and strike out sparks of divine fire.

Had the beauty of old Charleston produced the same negative effect,
Southern literature would have suffered a distinct loss--if that may
be regarded as lost which has never been possessed. For centuries the
Queen of the Sea stood in a vision of splendor, the tumultuous waves
of the Atlantic dashing at her feet, eternal sunshine crowning her
royal brow. Her gardens were stately with oleanders and pomegranates,
brilliant with jonquils and hyacinths, myrtle and gardenia. Roses of