TO THE EDITION OF 1846. Perhaps it would have been well if the author had followed his original intention, which was to leave out of this edition, as unworthy of publication, several of the poems which made a part of his previous collections. He asks leave to plead the judgment of a literary friend,* whose opinion in such matters he highly values, as his apology for having retained them. With the exception of the first and longest poem in the collection, "The Ages," they are all arranged according to the order of time in which they were written, as far as it can be ascertained.† NEW YORK, 1846. TO THE EDITION OF 1854. The present edition has been carefully revised by the author, and some faults of diction and versification corrected. A few poems not in the previous editions have been added. New York, August, 1854. TO THE EDITION OF 1863. The author has attempted no other classification of the poems in this volume than that of allowing them to follow each other according to the order of time in which they were * Mr. Richard H. Dana, of Boston.-Ed. + Mistakes were made, however, in this respect, which the editor has tried to correct. written. It has seemed to him that this arrangement is as satisfactory as any other, since, at different periods of life, an author's style and habits of thought may be supposed to undergo very considerable modifications. One poem forms an exception to this order of succession, and should have appeared in an earlier collection. Three others have already appeared in an illustrated edition of the author's poems. NEW YORK, December, 1863. |