To the Reader
This prelude is not a criticism, but a tribute of affection and remembrance. Readers who care for poetry will at once observe that a certain lyrical eloquence is a general characteristic of The Garden of Years and the ensuing shorter pieces, charged with a passion for Nature and a spirit of intense sympathy with their author’s fellow-men. Equally manifest is his versatility, shown by the exultant tone of the hymn of rehabilitation, Gloria Mundi, the tenderness of At Twilight, and the light touch of The Débutante,—a range even more striking when contrasted with the whimsical drollery of his published volumes of humorous verse. He did right in grouping together the five ballads that follow the title-poem; and in so doing em-phasized not only their strength, but the patriotism which was one of his most attractive traits. Proud of his country’s victories, American to the core, he is nowhere more impulsive than in the fine lyric. When the Great Gray Ships Come In, which sings of peace rather than of war. It expresses, no less, his passion for the sea and his comprehension of it. Like that older bard of our Eastern Coast, he had the key to ocean’s book of mystery; he loved its tides and eddies, the shells and flotsam along its shores, its laughter and mist and surge. The ships upon its bosom,
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