.PREFACE. THE unexpected favor, with which the American Common-Place Book of Prose was received, encouraged its publishers to hope that a similar volume of extracts from American poetry might be attended with the same success. It is true, that there are more good prose writers in our country than there are poets; but it would be strange, indeed, if enough of really excellent poetry could not be found to fill a volume like this. It is not pretended that every piece, in the following selection, is a stately and perfect song, inspired by "the vision and the faculty divine," and containing, throughout, the true power and spirit of harmony; but every lover of poetry will find much to delight a cultivated imagination, and much to set him on thinking; and every religious mind will be pleased that a volume of American poetry, so variously selected, presents so many pages imbued with the feelings of devotion. If all the extracts are not of sufficient excellence to excite vivid admiration, most of them are of the kind that meet us Like a pleasant thought, When such are wanted They are generally simple and unpretending in ornament, quiet and unambitious in their spirit. The poetry of devotion is the rarest of all poetry. It is sad to think how few, of all the poets in the English language, have possessed or exhibited the Christian character, or had the remembrance of their names associated with the thoughts of Christ and his cross, or the feelings to which the great theme of redemption gives rise in the bosom of the Christian. We may find plenty of the sentimentality of religion, expressed, too, in beautiful language-but as cold as a winter night's transitory frost-work on our windows. A few beloved volumes, indeed, have their place in the heart; but they are few; and of these the praise belongs not exclusively to the genius of poetry, but to a far more precious and elevated spirit-the spirit of the Bible. What bosom, that possesses this, does not contain the germ of deep poetry? What poet has experienced its influence, whose song does not breathe an echo of the melodies of paradise? In the true minstrelsy of devotion, there is a higher excellence than that of mere genius. Poetry herself acknowledges a power which is not in her, and observes a deep and sublime emotion excited, which she cannot, unassisted, produce or maintain in the souls of her listeners. When she becomes the handmaid of piety, she finds herself adorned and enriched (in another |