PREFACE. POETRY is acknowledged by all commentators to be a more pure and universal expression of the tendencies of human nature than prose. When GOD first spake to man, it was in the language of Poetry he was pleased to make his unerring will known, and when the prophets of old revealed futurity, through holy inspiration, the same ennobling sentiment seemed alone sufficient to embody those revelations meant to enlighten posterity!-Indeed, the soul of man is never touched by the live-coal of sympathy, but Poetry is the medium through which the skilful operator effects his greatest design. - what our What are our early recollections: highest hopes, our lowest fears: - what all the beauties of nature strewn around us? but Poetry! And yet there are those, who imagine they flatter their own vanity by affecting to deny all its influences. Poetry is said, however, to be a drug in the market, while, at the same time, every one is annoying us with long quotations from its pages; and who would not consider himself insulted if he were told, that he was not deeply read in its master-spirits? If Poetry then, be a drug-what shall we call Prose? The drug of drugs! My reason for saying so is, that the nearer poetry is related to prose, the greater drug it becomes, having fewer figures of speech, less condensation and originality of thought, and also being destitute of the necessary allusions to nature, from which alone the unfilming pearls are to be gathered that should brilliantly adorn its impassioned pages. Thus Poetry has often suffered by the remarks of those who are generally pleased with prose, if they only discover volumes of snow-white paper blackened with diffuse typography, while the same persons, when they open a volume of poetry, expect to be immediately set on fire; forgetting that the want of electricity in themselves, may be the latent cause why they do not really kindle! In speaking thus of Prose, these remarks are strictly confined to the incalculable number of gossa mer-web works of fiction, which serve no other purpose, than to give young ladies an imperfect idea of human life! So long as a work does not circulate far beyond the region of the author's acquaintance, he is likely to meet with much whispering, spleen, and petty censure; but among strangers he is more candidly dealt with, being free from flattery on the one hand, and insult on the other; there also exist those, who consider every moment mis-spent, that is given to reflection and the Muses, whilst they themselves have impulses in their own nature, which, instead of leading them to ennobling pursuits, make them nightly trifle with time, their consciences, and constitutions. The present Poem is written on a deprivation, which the author has always deeply and sincerely deplored, and which must have awakened in thousands a similar sympathy. He has ever considered the Blind, compassion's nearest friend! shut out from the external beauty of nature, groping in endless night through a strange and noisy world, "All dull, and comfortless!" This attempt to bring the Blind into more general notice, has given him much heart-felt pleasure, and he considers it a duty he owes to those suffering so heavy a bereavement. If he can, therefore, be so far successful as to render the reading of this Poem instrumental in drawing more attention towards the Indigent Blind, he will rejoice in the effort, while he also hopes that the many descriptions given of nature will afford pleasure to the reader; but though such vast improvement has been made of late in the tuition of the Blind; to them, in many cases, this work may be more the poetry of Sight than of Blindness. If any should object to the heroine being deprived of Sight,—in the third part,―let them remember that this allows full scope to describe no mean portion of the Blind,-those who once enjoyed the rapturous perception of nature, but do so no longer. "Total eclipse, nor sun nor moon, All dark amid the blaze of noon!" It is humbly hoped, that even the hyper-critical will be just enough to confess, that there is scarcely a species of Blindness on which this Poem does not touch; while the many years of correspondence and |
