Page:Poems May.djvu/21

 rized discharger of the office, that the editor of a public journal may sometimes be the first to see that a fine spirit stands waiting without, and for lack of better usher, he may advance to claim entrance for the stranger. The introducer of the present work to the public is in that position. If it seem that his task might be done with better grace by one having more authority, his apology has been made in what he has just written.

Of the poems in this volume, and of the powers of the fair poetess, the writer has expressed his opinions very fully in the journal of which he is editor, and to which some of them were originally contributed. Beautiful as these early productions are, however, he looks upon them mainly as promises. They have been written upon the leaf of life first turned over after girlhood—in the lap of luxury and seclusion, with no inspiration save what comes from the instincts of the heart and conversance with the romantic scenery around her home. They are literally the fore-reachings of genius which anticipate the teachings of experience.

How Edith May would sing of the realities of life, hav-