Page:The Cambridge History of American Literature, v2.djvu/317

 Anthologies 3oi a place to representative poets of all states, and especially to his personal friends, is in part responsible. Furthermore, the book was thrown hastily together without any arrangement of the material with regard to authorship or chronology. When all has been said, however, we find in this volume the first anthology of practically all the important poems produced by the South during the war — seven each by Randall, J. R. Thompson, and Simms himself, six by Haytie, three by Tick- nor, three by Flash, and, above aU, eleven by Timrod. It is this recognition of Timrod's greatness as a poet, this first setting him forth as the poet of the South who expressed in adequate verse every aspect of the struggle, that increases the value of the book and our appreciation of Simms's critical judgment. In 1869 appeared The Southern Amaranth, characterized by its editor. Miss Sallie A. Brock, as "a carefully selected collec- tion of poems growing out of and in reference to the late war." In the preface of March, 1868, she expresses a wish to render to her Southern sisters "some assistance in gathering up the remains of the Confederate dead. " Her regret is that "a vast number of beautiful and worthy productions are compelled for want of space to be crowded out of this volume. " In florid style she exclaims: The Muse of the Southland is one of tireless wing, and though her theme is lofty and glorious as the golden sunset splendor upon the purple sky of evening, her song is often as sad as the weary echoes of the winter wind through her matchless forests — the moumftd wailings of broken hearts. The most striking new features of the volume are Timrod's Ode on the Confederate Dead (written in 1867) and Dr. Ticknor's Little Giffen of Tennessee, which, though probably written in 1863, was not pubUshed until October, 1867, in The Land We Love, The latter poem is not given, however, as it appears in the revised form of later years, the last stanza being especially faulty. All these anthologies had appeared with but little introduc- tory material or notes regarding the lives of the writers or the circumstances under which the poems were written. They were all practically a conglomeration of poems with Uttle to aid