Leisure moments

Front matter

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Preface

While some of these poems have been published previously, the majority of them, though written at intervals extending over a period of many years, appear now for the first time. A number of them, being very early efforts, date back nearly as far as the childhood of the author, by whom only as so many landmarks and reminiscences of the ''dead past" are they considered worthy of preservation.

Urged by the partial opinions of kind friends, the writer has been induced, whatever be the merits or defects of these fugitive offspring of some of her "Leisure Moments" (which like strayed sheep have been so long scattered), to gather them now into one fold, or volume.

Though praise should generally be valuable to us only in proportion as we know in our own hearts that we deserve it, yet, when it comes direct from those whose characters rank high in our esteem, it bears at least t\iQ prima facie assurance of good will, and rarely

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PREFACE.

fails to exert due influence on our feelings or actions. The recollection that many of the present poems have received the sanction of the one to whom they are dedicated, is probably the mainspring of conclusions which instigate their publication. That they have been understood and appreciated by that disinterested friend in whose gentle nature was combined every female virtue, whose mind and heart were refined by cultivation and upright actions, is the reflection which constitutes for the writer their sweetest association and chief value. They serve as ties of affection which connect with the memory of that dear one in the past, and as links of hope which unite with her in the future.

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