Mazelli, and Other Poems

By George W. Sands




PREFACE

Under this head, I desire to say a few words upon three subjects,
--my friends, my book, and myself.

My friends, though not legion in number, have been, in their
efforts in my behalf, disinterested, sincere, and energetic.

My book: I lay it, as my first offering, at the shrine of my
country's fame. "Would it were worthier." While our soldiers
are first in every field where they meet our enemies, and while
the wisdom of our legislators is justified before all the world,
in the perfection of our beloved institutions, our literature
languishes. This should not be so; for literature, with its
kindred arts, makes the true glory of a nation. We bow in spirit
when Greece is named, not alone because she was the mother of
heroes and lawgivers, but because her hand rocked the cradle of
a literature as enduring as it is beautiful and brilliant, and
cherished in their infancy those arts which eventually repaid her
nursing care in a rich harvest of immortal renown.

For myself I have little to say. I have not written for fame, and
if my life had been a happy one I should never have written at all.