LIFE-LIGHTS OF SONG.

SONGS

OF

LOVE & BROTHERHOOD.

EDITED BY

DAVID PAGE, F.R.S.E., F.G.S.,

AUTHOR OF "PHILOSOPHY OF GEOLOGY," ETC.

EDINBURGH:
WILLIAM P. NIM MO.

1864.

280.

h. 56.

SODI

Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne & Company, Paul's Work.

T has been frequently remarked, that one of the great defects of the present age

is want of sympathy, not only between the different classes of society, but between man and man in the more intimate relations

Love

of everyday life. To inculcate this sympathy with all the force and genial fervour of poetry is the object of the present Selection. and brotherhood, charity and kindness, mercy and forbearance-all, in fact, that is embraced by the great Christian precept of "Love one another," are here embodied in the attractive and persuasive language of song. The love that binds heart to heart within the hallowed precincts of the family circle, and the brotherhood that links man to man, and neighbour to neighbour, in the wider field of the world,

b

form the sole themes of the volume-themes

that the poet can invest with an interest which the prose-writer would labour in vain to excite.

Garnered from the abundant harvest of English and American poetry, there is necessarily a great variety of subject and diversity of treatment; and it is in this variety that much of the attraction of the Selection will be found to consist. Husband and wife, parent and child, brother and sister, will alike find expression to that Love which sanctifies their relationships; while friend and neighbour, rich and poor, master and servant, the indifferent who require to be aroused, and the heartless who need rebuke, will meet with incentives to that Brotherhood which forms the basis and bond of all enduring society. The main endeavour has been to find pieces applicable to every relation of life; brief, and embodying, if possible, a single sentiment that the memory may readily recall; and in every instance breathing throughout a truly catholic and cosmopolitan spirit.

To the "Songs of God and Nature," these Songs of Love and Brotherhood" form a necessary and appropriate sequel-man's duties of love and benevolence to his fellow-men being

next to those reverential relations that ought to subsist between man and nature and the God of nature, his most exalted and imperative function.

"O brother man! fold to thy heart thy brother;
Where pity dwells, the peace of God is there;
To worship rightly is to love each other,

Each smile a hymn, each kindly deed a prayer.

6

"Follow with reverent steps the great example
Of Him whose holy work was doing good;'
So shall the wide earth seem our Father's temple,
Each loving life a psalm of gratitude.

"Then shall all shackles fall; the stormy clangor
Of wild war-music o'er the earth shall cease;
Love shall tread out the baleful fire of anger,
And in its ashes plant the tree of peace!"

The Selection, we have said, has been made from the wide field of modern poetry; and in several instances from the works of living authors. To them and to their publishers we offer our most cordial thanks for the kind assistance thereby rendered to our design; and if in any instance the authorship remains unacknowledged, the omission has arisen, not from neglect, but from want of better information.

EDINBURGH, January 1864.