immediate utterance, and he would turn to the fly leaf of the book in
hand or on a neighboring shelf, and his pencil would soon record the
lines, or fragments of lines, that claimed release from his brain. The
labor of revision usually followed,--sometimes promptly, but not
infrequently after the fervor of conception had passed away." The
painstaking care with which the revising was done is revealed in the
artistic finish of almost every poem.

Hayne's life at this time was truly heroic. With uncomplaining fortitude
he met the hardships of poverty and bore the increasing ills of failing
health. He never lost hope and courage. He lived the poetry that he
sang:--

"Still smiles the brave soul, undivorced from hope;
And, with unwavering eye and warrior mien,
Walks in the shadow dauntless and serene,
To test, through hostile years, the utmost scope
Of man's endurance--constant, to essay
All heights of patience free to feet of clay."

And in the end he was not disappointed. Gradually his genius gained
general recognition. The leading magazines of the country were opened to
him; and, as Stedman remarks, "his people regarded him with a tenderness
which, if a commensurate largess had been added, would have made him feel
less solitary among his pines."

In 1872 a volume of _Legends and Lyrics_ was issued by Lippincott &
Co. It shows the poet's genius in the full power of maturity. His legends
are admirably told, and _Aethra_ is a gem of its kind. But the
richness of Hayne's imagination was better suited to lyric than to