IN collecting the following poems I have to thank the editors and
proprietors of the periodicals in which certain of them have appeared for
permission to reclaim them.
Now that the miscellany is brought together, some lack of concord in
pieces written at widely severed dates, and in contrasting moods and
circumstances, will be obvious enough. This I cannot help, but the sense
of disconnection, particularly in respect of those lyrics penned in the
first person, will be immaterial when it is borne in mind that they are
to be regarded, in the main, as dramatic monologues by different
characters.
As a whole they will, I hope, take the reader forward, even if not far,
rather than backward. I should add that some lines in the early-dated
poems have been rewritten, though they have been left substantially
unchanged.