Henry Timrod (Генри Тимрод)

Dedication

  To Fairy

Do you recall—I know you do—
A little gift once made to you—
A simple basket filled with flowers,
All favorites of our Southern bowers?

One was a snowy myrtle-bud,
Another blushed as if with blood,
A third was pink of softest tinge,
Then came a disk with purple fringe.

You took them with a happy smile,
And nursed them for a little while,
And once or twice perhaps you thought
Of the fond messages they brought.

And yet you could not then divine
The promise in that gift of mine,—
In those bright blooms and odors sweet,
I laid this volume at your feet.

At yours, my child, who scarcely know
How much to your dear self I owe,—
Too young and innocent as yet
To guess in what consists the debt.

Therefore to you henceforth belong
These Southern asphodels of song,
Less MY creations than your own,
What praise they win are yours alone.

For here no fancy finds a place
But is an affluence of your grace;—
And when my songs are sweetest, then
A Dream like you hath touched my pen.

Henry Timrod’s other poems:

  1. The Stream is Flowing from the West
  2. Hymn Sung at an Anniversary of the Asylum of Orphans at Charleston
  3. Lines to R. L.
  4. To Whom?
  5. Sonnets. 2. Most Men Know Love But as a Part of Life

Poems of other poets with the same name (Стихотворения других поэтов с таким же названием):

  • Alfred Tennyson (Альфред Теннисон) Dedication (“These to His Memory–since he held them dear”)
  • Robert Stevenson (Роберт Стивенсон) Dedication (“MY first gift and my last, to you”)
  • Eleanor Farjeon (Элинор Фарджон) Dedication (“My body having encountered with a soul”)
  • Robert Service (Роберт Сервис) Dedication (“In youth I longed to paint”)
  • Stephen Benet (Стивен Бене) Dedication (“To W. R. B.”)




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