Page:Poems of Nature and Life.djvu/33

 THE RANDALL FAMILY 2$

author's wish alone which caused his little book to appear so quietly. His feelings, however, can be interpreted by his own address to the reader far better than by any words of mine : —

' If aught here painted to thy soul or sight Of moral truth or natural scenes delight, Welcome ! for thou art straight a comrade grown, Who oft before hath walked with me unknown. Yet, if thy taste reject a thoughtful book, Forbear upon these pictures even to look : Seek not to know me, lest, thy labor o'er, We grow more perfect strangers than before.'

" Yet it is no egotistical vanity which leads him to re- fuse to employ the devices, so needful at the present day, to bring any book, however good, before the public gaze- With rare modesty, he says to his book : —

» Farewell ! On none intrude ! The world is wide ;

Go uncommended, dressed in plain attire, That none may save ye for a fair outside

Who, if mean-clad, had cast ye to the fire. If ye be worthless, ye shall die, no doubt ; If ye be worthy, worth shall find ye out.'

" It devolves, then, upon those who love the beautiful and the true to cherish this little stranger all the more tenderly because it comes to them unprotected and a foundling.

" Passing from these accessories, which foretell to us the character of the book, one finds what well deserves to be called remarkable poems. The author is no disciple of the modern English school. In his view, truth is far love- lier in her native simplicity than when tricked out with fantastic gauds. It is truly refreshing to turn from the

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