Page:Poems of home and country (IA poemsofhomecount01smit).pdf/13

 Equally to be prized are others which have blessed many who never associated his name with the precious lines. A few are noted:—

It has been a prompting incentive in this compilation to present the poet's life and work while he might be able to have some recognition of his good service for God and country. It should incite others to seek the assurance of a happy old age, through acceptance of the same lofty aims and unselfish methods which have. crowned his career, and that of his lovely companion, with purity and lustre.

Occasional notes indicate the special conditions under which many of the poems were written; and yet their breadth of thought and sympathetic expression enlarge their sphere of happy influence. A costly jewelled badge from the veterans of the Nineteenth Illinois Infantry, and a magnificent banner from the Grand Army Corps of Chicago, are among the many gifts, from all sections and from many lands, which remind him, and those who visit his modest home, that he is both loved and honored wherever he had contact with the world.

The selection made from his miscellaneous poems. to close the volume, indicates his early conception of the grandeur of our destiny as a Republic; and in the mingled grave and light the reader will find that