He was of strong intellect and delicate feelings, and an ardent patriot.

Some of the more striking of the poems of the elder Timrod are the following.
Washington Irving said of these lines that Tom Moore had written
no finer lyric: --


To Time, the Old Traveler


They slander thee, Old Traveler,
Who say that thy delight
Is to scatter ruin, far and wide,
In thy wantonness of might:
For not a leaf that falleth
Before thy restless wings,
But in thy flight, thou changest it
To a thousand brighter things.

Thou passest o'er the battlefield
Where the dead lie stiff and stark,
Where naught is heard save the vulture's scream,
And the gaunt wolf's famished bark;
But thou hast caused the grain to spring
From the blood-enrich|\ed clay,
And the waving corn-tops seem to dance
To the rustic's merry lay.

Thou hast strewed the lordly palace
In ruins on the ground,