POEMS

By John Hay




Note to Revised Edition



The Publishers of this volume, desiring to print it in an improved form,
have asked me to write something by way of preface or supplement to the
new edition. After some deliberation I have found myself unable to comply
with this request. These pages were written in the first half of the year
1870, a time of intense interest and importance, to Spain. I left Madrid
in the memorable August of that year, passing through Paris when that
beautiful city was lying in the torpor which followed the wild excitement
of the declaration of war, and preceded the fury of despair that came with
the catastrophe of Sedan. I then intended to return to Spain before long;
and, in fact, few years have passed since that time in which I have not
nourished the dream of revisiting the Peninsula and its scenes of magic
and romance. But many cares and duties have intervened; I have never gone
back to Spain, and I have arrived at an age when I begin to doubt if I
have any castles there requiring my attention.

I have therefore nothing to add to this little book. Reading it again
after the lapse of many years, I find much that might be advantageously
modified or omitted. But as its merits, if it have any, are merely those
of youth, so also are its faults, and they are immanent and structural;