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THE COMING OF THE PRINCESS; AND OTHER POEMS.

BY

KATE SEYMOUR MACLEAN, KINGSTON, ONTARIO.

AN INTRODUCTION, BY THE EDITOR OF "THE CANADIAN MONTHLY."



INTRODUCTION.

BY G MERCER ADAM.

The request of the author that I should write a few words of
preface to this collection of poems must be my excuse for obtruding
myself upon the reader. Having frequently had the pleasure as
editor of _The Canadian Monthly_, of introducing many of Mrs.
MacLean's poems to lovers of verse in the Dominion it was thought
not unfitting that I should act as foster father to the collection
of them here made and to bespeak for the volume at the hands at
least of all Canadians the appreciative and kindly reception due to a

   Child of the first winds and suns of a nation.

Accepting the task assigned to me the more readily as I discern the
high and sustained excellence of the collection as a whole let me
ask that the volume be received with interest as a further and most
meritorious contribution to the poetical literature of our young
country (the least that can be said of the work), and with sympathy
for the intellectual and moral aspirations that have called it into
being.

There is truth, doubtless, in the remark, that we are enriched less
by what we have than by what we hope to have. As the poetic art in
Canada has had little of an appreciable past, it may therefore be
thought that the songs that are to catch and retain the ear of the
nation lie still in the future, and are as yet unsung. Doubtless
the chords have yet to be struck that are to give to Canada the
songs of her loftiest genius; but he would be an ill friend of the
country's literature who would slight the achievements of the
present in reaching solely after what, it is hoped, the coming time
will bring.

But whatever of lyrical treasure the future may enshrine in
Canadian literature, and however deserving may be the claims of the
volumes of verse that have already appeared from the native press,
I am bold to claim for these productions of Mrs. MacLean's muse a
high place in the national collection and a warm corner in the
national heart.

To discern the merit of a poem is proverbially easier than to say
how and in what manner it is manifested. In a collection the task
of appraisement is not so difficult. Lord Houghton has said: "There
is in truth no critic of poetry but the man who enjoys it, and the
amount of gratification felt is the only just measure of
criticism." By this test the present volume will, in the main, be
judged. Still, there are characteristics of the author's work which
I may be permitted to point out. In Mrs. MacLean's volume what
quickly strikes one is not only the fact that the poems are all of
a high order of merit, but that a large measure of art and instinct
enters into the composition