E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Leonard Johnson,
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POEMS

BY
MARY BAKER EDDY

AUTHOR OF "SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY
TO THE SCRIPTURES"

Published by The
Trustees under the Will of Mary Baker G. Eddy
BOSTON, U.S.A.

Authorized Literature of
The First Church of Christ, Scientist
in Boston, Massachusetts

Copyright, 1910
By Mary Baker Eddy

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

PREFACE[Pg v]

The poems garnered up in this little volume were written at differentperiods in the life of the author, dating from her early girlhood up torecent years. They were not written with a view of making a book, eachpoem being the spontaneous outpouring of a deeply poetic nature andcalled forth by some experience that claimed her attention.

The "Old Man of the Mountain," for instance, was written while theauthor was contemplating this lofty New Hampshire crag, whose ruggedoutlines resemble the profile of a human face. Inspired by the grandeurof this masterpiece of nature's handiwork, and looking "up throughnature, unto nature's God," the poem began to take form in her thought,and alighting from her carriage, she seated herself by the roadside andbegan to write. Some tourists who were passing, and who made heracquaintance, asked her what she was writing, and she replied by readingthe poem to them. They were so pleased with it that each requested acopy, which was subsequently mailed to them. Similar requests continued[Pg vi]to reach the author for years afterward, until the poem finally foundits way into print, appearing, together with "The Valley Cemetery," in abook "Gems for You," published in Manchester, N. H., in 1850, and againin Boston, in 1856.

The poem on the "Dedication of a Temperance Hall," in Lynn, Mass., in1866, was written for that occasion, and was sung by the audience as adedicatory hymn. "The Liberty Bells" appeared in a Lynn, Mass.,newspaper, under the date of February 3, 1865. A note from the author,which was published with the poem, read as follows:

"Mr. Editor:—In 1835 a mob in Boston (although Boston has since beenthe pioneer of anti-slavery) dispersed a meeting of the FemaleAnti-Slavery Society, and assailed the person of William Lloyd Garrisonwith suc