The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
VOLUME XVI. Early National Literature, Part II; Later National Literature, Part I.
§ 2. Pinkney; Wilde
The result was that the South, in 1860, had found no adequate expression of her life, no interpretation of her ideals, not even a description of her natural scenery. What writing there was, with few exceptions, was not of the soil nor of the people. Poe, Edward Coate Pinkney (1802–28), author of the exquisite love-compliment A Health, and Richard Henry Wilde (1789–1847), who wrote the fragrant Stanzas beginning “My life is like the summer rose,” might have written anywhere. One poem of the War of 1812, one or two of the Mexican War, and some half dozen other lyrics constituted, despite the appearance of not a few volumes of well-meant verse, the poetic output of the South before the Civil War.