Literary Hearthstones of Dixie by La Salle Corbell Pickett
page 55 of 146 (37%)
page 55 of 146 (37%)
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pines and made radiant by the presence of his poet friend, was finer
than a palace. On that "windy, frowzy, barren hill," as Maurice Thompson called it, the two old friends spent together the spring days of '67--such days as lingered in golden beauty in the memory of one of them and have come down to us in immortal verse. Again in August of that year he visited Copse Hill, hoping to find health among the pines. Of these last days Paul Hayne wrote years later: In the latter summer-tide of this same year I again persuaded him to visit me. Ah! how sacred now, how sad and sweet, are the memories of that rich, clear, prodigal August of '67! We would rest on the hillsides, in the swaying golden shadows, watching together the Titanic masses of snow-white clouds which floated slowly and vaguely through the sky, suggesting by their form, whiteness, and serene motion, despite the season, flotillas of icebergs upon Arctic seas. Like lazzaroni we basked in the quiet noons, sunk into the depths of reverie, or perhaps of yet more "charmed sleep." Or we smoked, conversing lazily between the puffs, "Next to some pine whose antique roots just peeped From out the crumbling bases of the sand." But the evenings, with their gorgeous sunsets, "rolling down like a chorus" and the "gray-eyed melancholy gloaming," were the favorite hours of the day with him. |
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