Pity look'd lovely in the maiden; Her eyes were softer, when so laden With the bright dew of tears unshed. But I was somewhat envious That other bards should move her thus, And oft within myself had said, "Yea--I will strive to touch her heart With some fair songs of mine own art"---- And many days before the day Whereof I speak, I made essay At this bold labor. In the wells Of Froissart's life-like chronicles I dipp'd for moving truths of old. A thousand stories, soft and bold, Of stately dames, and gentlemen, Which good Lord Berners, with a pen Pompous in its simplicity, Yet tipt with charming courtesy, Had put in English words, I learn'd; And some of these I deftly turn'd Into the forms of minstrel verse. I know the good tales are the worse-- But, sooth to say, it seems to me My verse has sense and melody---- Even that its measure sometimes flows With the brave pomp of that old prose. It was a good while before the promised contents of the book were sent to us, and Cooke wrote of the delay to a friend: "Procrastination is a poison of my very marrow. Moreover, since 'the first wisping of the leaf,' my whole heart has been in the woods and the waters--every rising sun that could be seen, _I have seen_, and I never came in from my sport until too much used up to do more than adopt this epitaph of Sardanapalus: 'Eat, drink,' &c. Moreover (2d), Mr. Kennedy and others were poking me in the ribs eternally about my poems; and I was driven to the labor of finishing them. I groaned and did it, and sent them to Griswold, and have left the task of carrying them through the press to him; and only lie passive, saying with Don Juan (in the slave-market of Adrianople, or some other place), 'would to God somebody would buy me.'" At length through his cousin and friend, John P. Kennedy--(a name that makes one in charity with all mankind)--the MS. of all the poems was sent to us. It makes a book about the size of the printed volume, written with a regular elegance to match that of the old copyists. In an accompanying letter he says: