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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.

"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.

CONTENTS.

LOVE.

Love is the happy privilege of the mind,

FRIENDSHIP, LOVE, AND TRUTH.

When "Friendship, Love, and Truth" abound,

PRAYER FOR ALL.

My daughter, go and pray! See, night is come, CHARITY.

Come, let us sound her praise abroad,

WEDDED LOVE.

But happy they, the happiest of their kind, FRIENDSHIP.

Friendship, peculiar boon of Heaven,

I DARE NOT SCORN.

I may not scorn the meanest thing,

THE MARRIAGE VOW.

Speak it not lightly--'tis a holy thing,

BROTHERLY LOVE.

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How sweet, how heavenly is the sight,

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WIFE, CHILDREN, AND FRIENDS.

When the black-letter'd list to the gods was presented,

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Song from baser thoughts should win us;

Song should charm us out of woe; Song should stir the heart within us, Like a patriot's friendly blow.

"Pains and pleasures, all man doeth, War and peace, and right and wrong, All things that the soul subdueth,

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Should be vanquish'd, too, by Song.

Song should spur the mind to duty,
Nerve the weak, and stir the strong:
Every deed of truth and beauty

Should be crown'd by starry Song!"

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