After decades in the North, Archibald Rutledge returned in 1937 to the "e;hyacinth days and camellia nights"e; of his native Carolina Lowcountry to restore his family home, Hampton Plantation. Originally published in 1947, these pages describe, in intimate and compelling detail, the plantation life he found upon his return. In the simple and lyrical language that has become the hallmark of the first poet laureate of South Carolina, Rutledge eloquently portrays the black men and women who labored alongside him in the marshes of the Santee. With a foreword by Henry Middleton Rutledge and an introduction by Selden B. Hill.