O, dear Britain! O my mother isle! Needs must thou prove a name most dear and holy To me, a son, a brother, and a friend, A husband, and a father! who revere All bonds of natural love, and find them all Within the limits of thy rocky shores. O native Britain! O my mother isle! How shouldst thou prove aught else but dear and holy To me, who from thy lakes and mountain rills, Thy clouds, thy quiet dales, thy rocks and seas, Have drank in all my intellectual life, All sweet sensations, all ennobling thoughts, All adoration of the God in nature, All lovely and all honourable things, Whatever makes this mortal spirit feel The joys and greatness of its future being. There lives not form nor feeling in my soul Unborrowed from my country. O divine And beauteous island! thou hast been my sole And most magnificent temple, in the which I walk with awe, and sing my stately songs, Loving the God who made me. _Coleridge._ PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. The kind and most cordial greeting which this work has received from the public, and by which a very large impression has been speedily exhausted, demands a prompt and grateful acknowledgement. After all, the highest gratification which an author can derive from his writings, next to the persuasion that he has effected some good to his fellow-creatures, is felt in the generous echo of his own sentiments, which reaches him from the amiable and intelligent of his countrymen and countrywomen, on all sides and of every class, and in the nearer sympathy and communication into which he is brought with such minds. With respect to the opinions of the Press, there is one fact connected with this work which I state with peculiar gratification, because it does honour to human nature,--and that is, that the very warmest approbation has been, in the greater number of instances, bestowed upon it by those critics to whom the author is most decidedly opposed in political opinion. I cannot, either, refrain from observing, that though I did hope to find a quick response in the hearts of Englishmen on a subject in which both the author and his countrymen are alike so deeply interested, I could not anticipate the delight which Americans have manifested in it; and I must take this opportunity, as it is the only one afforded me, to express my sense of the interesting letter of “An American Lady--a stranger in this country,” with a copy of Bryant’s Poems. Many evidences of the interest felt in this work by my English readers, known and unknown, and of the benefit thence derived to the work by most valuable corrections and novel information, will become apparent in the progress of perusal.