Page:Famous Single Poems (1924).djvu/266

 of thirty-six pages, and is surely one of the most curious items on the shelves of that great institution. The argument which it presents is perhaps the most extraordinary and impudent in the history of American letters.

“The two accompanying articles,” says the preface, “discuss a question of interest to the public, but of far deeper interest to Mr. Ball and his friends. The claim made by Mrs. Akers, and the publication as her own of six verses of his beautiful poem, ‘Rock Me to Sleep,’ placed him in a situation of great embarrassment. For nearly ten years previous to such publication he had from time to time read these verses to his many friends, as his own composition. They had often been commented upon, admired and enjoyed. He sought no reputation as a poet. He had never published a verse or permitted it to be published by his friends. He sought no honors from an admiring public. He neither wished his name blazoned in the public press, or his works offered for sale at the booksellers’ stalls. He found his happiness in the refined enjoyments of his interesting and cultivated family circle, and in the society of his many friends.”

After painting this touching picture, the writer adds that Mr. Ball was most reluctant to engage in any controversy with Mrs. Akers, “but the course to be pursued was not left