Page:Adams - Songs of the Army of the Night.djvu/23



That Francis Adams' "Songs of the Army of the Night," a book which is a deliberate challenge and menace to all established opinions on the matters with which it deals, should be now entering on a third and enlarged edition, is an event not devoid of welcome and gladdening significance for those who, in the gloom of the present social turmoil, are looking for the dawn of a brighter and purer day. Originally published in Australia in 1888, the Songs (with a few slight omissions) were reproduced in England in 1890; and in spite of the tacit contempt or open hostility with which they were naturally received by the orthodox press, and a total lack of the indispensable literary log-rolling, they have won a gradual acceptance by sheer virtue of the faith and fire that are at the core of them. In the present issue the lines which were cancelled in 1890 have been mostly restored, while various alterations and additions have been introduced by the author himself, who carefully revised the book for this purpose a short time before his death.

The general intention and object of the "Songs of the Army of the Night" are sufficiently indicated in the author's Preface and Proem. The title itself is a suggestive one—a reminiscence perhaps of that "City of Dreadful Night" which another great democratic poet has depicted; but with the striking