NOTE BY THE AUTHOR. IN these Volumes, for the first time, a complete collection of my poetical writings has been made. While it is satisfactory to know that these scattered children of my brain have found a home, I cannot but regret that I have been unable, by reason of illness, to give that attention to their revision and arrangement, which respect for the op ons of others, and my own after-thought and experience demand. That there are pieces in this collection which I would “ willingly let die," I am free to confess. But, it is now too late to disown them, and I must submit to the inevitable penalty of poetical as well as other sins. There are others, intimately connected with the author's life and times, which owe their tena v of vitality to the circumstances under which they were written, and the events by which they were suggested. The long poem of Mogg Megone, was, in a great measure, composed in early life; and it is scarcely necessary to say that its subject is not such as the writer would have chosen at an AMESBURY, 18th, 3d Mo., › sequent period. J. G. W PROEM. I LOVE the old melodious lays The songs of Spenser's golden days Sprinkling our noon of time with freshest morning dew. To breathe their marvellous notes I try; I feel them, as the leaves and flowers And driuk with glad still lips the blessing of the sky. The rigor of a frozen clime, The harshness of an untaught ear, 1ue jarring words of one whose rhyme Beat often Labor's hurried time, Or Duty's rugged march through storm and strife, are here. Of mystic beauty, dreamy grace, No rounded art the lack supplies; Unskilled the subtle lines to trace, I view her common forms with unanointed eyes. Nor mine the seer-like power to show The secrets of the heart and mind; To drop the plummet-line below A more intense despair or brighter hope to find. Of human right and weal is shown; A hate of tyranny intense, As if my brother's pain and sorrow were my own. Oh Freedom! if to me belong Nor mighty Miltò. Nor Marvel: Still with a As theirs, I lay, like AMESBURY, 11th n and graceful song, is deep and strong em, my best gifts on thy shrine! 1847. Lines, written for the Meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society, at Chatham Street Chapel, N. Y., 1834. 151 Lines, suggested by a Visit to the City of Washington |