New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1876-06-18
Mr.. Lossfelisw ON Poems Of Places.

/
To the new series of little books. com
LopRftllow is about to publish, he furnishes
| the following happy Introduction:
Madame de Stael hae somewhere said
that "traveling is the saddeet of all pleas
ures.' But We all have the longing of Ras
selas in our haerts We are ready to leave
the Happy Valley Of Rome. and eager to
see something Of the world beyond the
streets and steeples of our native town. To
the young, travelling in boundIess delight;
to the old, pleasant memory and q tender
regret.
have often observed that among travel
ers there exists . kind Of freemasonxry
To have visited the same scenes is bond
Of sympathy between those who have ne
other point of contact. A vague intere u
surrounds the man whom We have meet In
foreign land, aud even reserved and silent
people become communicative when the
conversation turns upon the countries they
have seen.
1 have always found the poets nv best
travelling companions. They see many
thipgs that are invisible to common eyes.
Like Orlando in the forest of Arden, they
''hang Odes on hawthorns and elegies on
thistles." They invest the landscape with
human feeling, and cast upon it
"The light that never was on sea or land,
The conservation and the poets cream"
Even scenes unlovely in themselves be-
come clothed in beauty when illuminated
by the imagination, as faces in themselves
not beautiful become 80 by the expression
of thought and feeling.
The collection of Poems of Places has
been made partly for the pleasure Of max.
ing it, and partly for the pleasure hope it
may give to give to those who shall read it's
pages. 1t is the voice of the poets express
ing their delight in the scenes of nature.
and, like the song of birds. surrounding the
earth with muelc. For myself. | confess
that these poems have an indescribable
charm, as showing how the affections OF
men have gone forth to their favorite
hsunts, and oonsecrated them forever.
Great is the love Of English poets for
rural and secluded places. Greater still
their love for rivers. In Dray toms Poly
Olbion the roar of rivers is almost deafen-
ing; and if more of them do not run through
the pages of this work, it is from fear OF
changing it into moraes, which, however
beautiful with flowers and fsgs, might be
an unsafe footing for the wsyfarer.
Or one or two names have been a little
doubtful. not finding them in any map or
gazetteer. They may be only pseudonyms.
But doubtless the poets had s0me place in
mind - they wrote, and the beauty of the
verses must be my apology for inserting
them. ~
remember to have read in some book of
the Law that ''if mans land Is not sur
rounded by any actual fence the law en-
circles 1t with an imaginary Enclosure, to
pass which ie to break and enter his close,
In this work fear the poets will regard
me as great treaspasser. I certainly have
broken and entered their close; but as I
have done it with no evil intent, trust
they will pardon me.
The volumes now published will be fol-
lowed by others Of like character, des-
criptive of other countries, till the Voyage
Round the World" sketched by Mr.. Mont
in the poem which stands IA
Prelude, shall be brought to q safe and
happy end.