University of Virginia Library

PREFACE.

With respect to the Prose part of this book I have
nothing to say, except that such portions of it as purport
to be true, are actually and truly facts. With respect to
the Poems, the kind public will indulge me in saying a
brief word. For them I have to ask no indulgence, and
the public, I know, ought to have none to grant. It is
not my intention to bespeak for them any degree of favor,
but merely to mention, in passing, that if there be in them
imitation of any writer, I trust that it extends only to the
style; and I know that I have not wilfully committed plagiarism.
It is possible that the imitation may extend
farther than I suppose. It is some time since I have seen
the works of any poet; and the things of memory have
become so confused with those of my own imagination,
that I am at times, when an idea flashes upon me, uncertain
whether it be my own, or whether, like the memory
of a dream, it has clung to my mind from the works of
some of the poets, till it has seemed to become my own
peculiar property.

If I am accused of affectation, I needs must deny the
charge. What I have written has been a transcript of my
own feelings—too much so, perhaps, for the purposes of
fame. Writing has been to me, always, a communing
with my own soul. These Poems have been written in

desertion and loneliness, and sometimes in places of fear
and danger. My only sources of thought and imagery
have been my own mind, and nature, who has appeared
to me generally in desolate fashion and utter dreariness,
and not unfrequently in the guise of sublimity.

I have acquired, by wild and desolate life, a habit of
looking steadily in upon my own mind, and of fathoming
its resources; and perhaps solitude has been a creator of
egotism. Of this, the public will judge. By all whom I
number as my friends, the faults of this book will be forgiven;
and if there be in it no vatis spiritus, those who
knew me will at least recognise it as the breathings of one
who has departed from among them—as the expression of
his feeling, and as such they will love them. Fame is
valueless to me, unless I can hear it breathed by the lips
of those I love. To the world, therefore, and to my old
Mother City, I bequeath my last gift. If unworthy of her,
let her remember, that poor and weak though it be, the
tribute of the heart is not to be despised.