The Poet Among the Hills: Oliver Wendell Holmes in Berkshire (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Poet Among the Hills: Oliver Wendell Holmes in Berkshire

One who glances at the title-page of this lit tle volume will naturally ask What is its object? Why, should it be compiled at all? Impertinent questions deserve no answer; and queries like these would be impertinent if made about a work in the ordinary course of liter ature, where an author's will is autocratic in conferring titles. But this diverges from that course in a manner which limits the editor's independence - to say nothing of autocracy. Thus the supposed questions, being natural, are pertinent; and, being pertinent, are to be eu swered.

The answer is not far to seek. Whatever else may follow, our primal object is to bring to gether from the many poems of a great author a few which are so marked by distinctive char acteristics derived from the region of peculiar and intense individuality in which they were written, that they form a class by themselves. The purpose in annotating these poems is this while most of them are now precious posses sions of all English-speaking peoples, they were local in their inception and development. A description of the scenery which helped to in spire them, with a narration of the circum stances which led to their writing, and of those which attended their only public delivery in their author's living voice, may therefore en able the reader to enjoy, in addition to the inherent charms of the verse, something of that indescribable, and in a degree evanescent, Sparkle and flavor which enchanted those who listened to its silver-toned enunciation fresh from the poet's heart and lips, while their own sympathies were attuned to harmony with what they heard by accompaniments that we shall endeavor to reproduce in such measure as we may.

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