youthful ambition "to be for ever known," and part whereof I dare believe has been "so written to after-times as they should not willingly let it die," it appeared proper that this poem, through which the author had been first made known to the public two and forty years ago, should lead the way; and the thought, that it was once more to pass through the press under my own inspection, induced a feeling in some respects resembling that with which it had been first delivered to the printer. And yet how different! for not in hope and ardor, nor with the impossible intention of rendering it what it might have been had it been planned and executed in middle life, did I resolve to correct it once more throughout; but for the purpose of making it more consistent with itself in diction, and less inconsistent in other things with the well-weighed opinions of my maturer years. The faults of effort, which may generally be regarded as hopeful indications in a juvenile writer, have been mostly left as they were. The faults of language which remained from the first edition have been removed, so that in this respect the whole is sufficiently in keeping. And for those which expressed the political prejudices of a young man who had too little knowledge to suspect his own ignorance, they have either been expunged or altered, or such substitutions have been made for them as harmonize with the pervading spirit of the poem, and are nevertheless in accord with those opinions which the author has maintained for thirty years, through good and evil report, in the maturity of his judgment as well as in the sincerity of his heart.

KESWICK, Aug. 30, 1837.

TO EDITH SOUTHEY.

EDITH! I brought thee late a humble gift,
The songs of earlier youth: it was a wreath
With many an unripe blossom garlanded
And many a weed, yet mingled with some flowers
Which will not wither. Dearest! now I bring
A worthier offering: thou wilt prize it well,
For well thou know'st amid what painful cares
My solace was in this; and, though to me
There is no music in the hollowness

Of common praise, yet well content am I
Now to look back upon my youth's green prime,
Nor idly nor unprofitably passed,

Imping in such adventurous essay

The wing, and strengthening it for steadier flight.

BURTON, near Christ Church, 1797.

JOAN OF ARC.

THE FIRST BOOK.

THERE was high feasting held at Vaucouleur;
For old Sir Robert had a famous guest,

The Bastard Orleans; and the festive hours,
Cheered with the Troubadour's sweet minstrelsy,
Passed gayly at his hospitable board.

But not to share the hospitable board,
And hear sweet minstrelsy, Dunois had sought
Sir Robert's hall: he came to rouse Lorraine,
And glean what force the wasting war had left
For one last effort. Little had the war
Left in Lorraine, but age, and youth unripe
For slaughter yet, and widows, and young maids
Of widowed loves. And now with his great guest
The Lord of Vaucouleur sat cómmuning
On what might profit France, and found no hope,
Despairing of their country, when he heard
An old man and a maid awaited him