Though an edition of the Poetry of the Irish Melodies, separate from the
Music, has long been called for, yet, having, for many reasons, a strong
objection to this sort of divorce, I should with difficulty have consented
to a disunion of the words from the airs, had it depended solely upon me
to keep them quietly and indissolubly together. But, besides the various
shapes in which these, as well as my other lyrical writings, have been
published throughout America, they are included, of course, in all the
editions of my works printed on the Continent, and have also appeared, in
a volume full of typographical errors, in Dublin. I have therefore readily
acceded to the wish expressed by the Proprietor of the Irish Melodies, for
a revised and complete edition of the poetry of the Work, though well
aware that my verses must lose even more than the "_animae dimidium_" in
being detached from the beautiful airs to which it was their good fortune
to be associated.