INTRODUCTION

The edition of my poems published in 1857 contained the following note
by way of preface:--

"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
opinions of others and my own afterthought 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 tenacity 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 any subsequent period."

After a lapse of thirty years since the above was written, I have been
requested by my publishers to make some preparation for a new and
revised edition of my poems. I cannot flatter myself that I have added
much to the interest of the work beyond the correction of my own errors