THE

POETICAL WORKS

OF

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

FIRST ENGLISH EDITION.

LONDON:

G. ROUTLEDGE & CO., FARRINGDON STREET..

MDCCCLII.

280.r. 327.

THE AUTHOR TO THE (AMERICAN) PUBLISHERS.

I THANK you for the pains you have taken to bring together the poems now added to this collection; one of them having been accidentally omitted, and the existence of the others forgotten. So many productions which bear the plain marks of immaturity and inexperience have been allowed to remain, because they were in the earlier editions, that a few occasional and careless stanzas may be added to their company without any apology. I have no doubt you are right in thinking that there is no harm in allowing a few crudities to keep their place among the rest; for, as you suggest, the readers of a book are of various ages and tastes, and what sounds altogether schoolboy-like to the author, may be very author-like to the schoolboy. Some of the more questionable extravagances to be found in the earlier portion of the volume, have, as I learn, pleased a good many young people let

iv

us call these, and all the others that we have outgrown, Juvenile Poems, but keep them, lest some of the smaller sort that were, or are, or are to be, should lament their absence. I thought of mentioning the date at which the several poems were written, which would explain some of their differences; but the reader can judge them nearly enough, perhaps, without this assist

ance.

To save a question that is sometimes put, it is proper to say, that in naming two of the poems after two of the Muses, nothing more was intended than a suggestion of their general character and aim.

In a former note of mine I made certain explanations which I thought might be needed; but as nobody seems to have misinterpreted anything, we will trust our book hereafter to itself, not doubting that whatever is good in it will redeem and justify the rest.

BOSTON, January 13th, 1849.