The Project Gutenberg EBook of Poems, by John Hay

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Title: Poems

Author: John Hay

Release Date: December 23, 2003 [EBook #10518]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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POEMS

By John Hay

Note to Revised Edition

The Publishers of this volume, desiring to print it in an improved form,
have asked me to write something by way of preface or supplement to the
new edition. After some deliberation I have found myself unable to comply
with this request. These pages were written in the first half of the year
1870, a time of intense interest and importance, to Spain. I left Madrid
in the memorable August of that year, passing through Paris when that
beautiful city was lying in the torpor which followed the wild excitement
of the declaration of war, and preceded the fury of despair that came with
the catastrophe of Sedan. I then intended to return to Spain before long;
and, in fact, few years have passed since that time in which I have not
nourished the dream of revisiting the Peninsula and its scenes of magic
and romance. But many cares and duties have intervened; I have never gone
back to Spain, and I have arrived at an age when I begin to doubt if I
have any castles there requiring my attention.

I have therefore nothing to add to this little book. Reading it again
after the lapse of many years, I find much that might be advantageously
modified or omitted. But as its merits, if it have any, are merely those
of youth, so also are its faults, and they are immanent and structural;
they cannot be amended without tearing the book to pieces. For this reason
I have confined myself to the correction of the most obvious and flagrant
errors, and can only hope the kindly reader will pass over with an
indulgent smile the rapid judgments, the hot prejudices, the pitiless
condemnations, the lyric eulogies, born of an honest enthusiasm and
unchecked by the reserve which comes of age and experience. I venture to
hope, though with some anxiety and uncertainty, that the honest enthusiasm
may itself be recognized, as well as the candor which the writer tried