we have quoted the _wonder _of the little maiden at the
fleetness of her favorite-the "little silver feet"--the fawn challenging
his mistress to a race with "a pretty skipping grace," running on
before, and then, with head turned back, awaiting her approach only to
fly from it again-can we not distinctly perceive all these things? How
exceedingly vigorous, too, is the line,

"And trod as if on the four winds!"

A vigor apparent only when we keep in mind the artless character of
the speaker and the four feet of the favorite, one for each wind. Then
consider the garden of "my own," so overgrown, entangled with roses and
lilies, as to be "a little wilderness"--the fawn loving to be there,
and there "only"--the maiden seeking it "where it _should _lie"--and
not being able to distinguish it from the flowers until "itself would
rise"--the lying among the lilies "like a bank of lilies"--the loving to
"fill itself with roses,"

"And its pure virgin limbs to fold
In whitest sheets of lilies cold,"

and these things being its "chief" delights-and then the pre-eminent
beauty and naturalness of the concluding lines, whose very hyperbole
only renders them more true to nature when we consider the innocence,
the artlessness, the enthusiasm, the passionate girl, and more
passionate admiration of the bereaved child--

"Had it lived long, it would have been Lilies without, roses within."

* "Book of Gems," Edited by S. C. Hall

POEMS

TO

THE NOBLEST OF HER SEX

THE AUTHOR OF

"THE DRAMA OF EXILE"--

TO

MISS ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

OF ENGLAND

_I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME_

WITH THE MOST ENTHUSIASTIC ADMIRATION AND WITH

THE MOST SINCERE ESTEEM

1845 E.A.P.

PREFACE

THESE trifles are collected and republished chiefly with a view to their
redemption from the many improvements to which they have been subjected
while going at random the "rounds of the press." I am naturally anxious
that what I have written should circulate as I wrote it, if it circulate
at all. In defence of my own taste, nevertheless, it is incumbent upon
me to say that I think nothing in this volume of much value to the
public, or very creditable to myself. Events not to be controlled have
prevented me from making, at any time, any serious effort i