Most of the poems collected in this volume have already seen the light
of print in the _Colonnade_, the monthly publication of the Andiron Club
of New York University. The effort of the author has not been to write
verses especially adapted to the taste of the modern public, but rather
to create "a thing of beauty" from the theme that filled his mind at the
time. Often he has been led into somewhat bold innovations such as the
invention of the miniature ode, and the associating of an idea with a
rime-_motiv_ in the metrical short-stories. While he hopes that the new
forms will justify themselves, he realizes that after all, the poems
must stand or fall in proportion to the amount of pure artistic beauty
contained within them.