Page:Halleck.djvu/24

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
xii
PREFACE.

mortal song the glories of the modern Epaminondas, will remain fresh and green, not only in the country of his birth, but in the land of Bozzaris. In England, his “Alnwick Castle,”

“Home of the Percy’s high-born race,”

will long preserve his name from oblivion; while in Scotland, the song he sang in praise of Burns will forever connect him with her greatest poet. “Nothing finer has been written about Robert than Mr. Halleck’s poem,” said Isabella, the youngest sister of the Ayrshire bard, as she gave the writer, in the summer of 1855, some rose-buds from her garden, and leaves of ivy plucked from her cottage door, near the banks of the bonny Doon, to carry back to his gifted friend. Neither will those exquisitely beautiful and tender lines, so familiar to all, in which the early death of his chosen companion and literary partner, Dr. Drake, was mourned by Mr. Halleck, be soon forgotten. They are, and will continue to be, an enduring monument to both the poets, wherever the English language is read or spoken. Like Thomas Campbell,