Drawn & Engraved by J. N. Gimbrede
Give me the calm of Days decline to muse upon my own
HALLOWEEN,
A ROMAUNT,
WITH
LAYS,
MEDITATIVE AND DEVOTIONAL.
BY
THE AUTHOR OF “CHRISTIAN BALLADS.”
HARTFORD:
H. S. PARSONS.
1845.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1844, by
H. S. PARSONS,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of Connecticut.
Stereotyped by
RICHARD H. HOBBS,
Hartford, Conn.
Printed by
CASE, TIFFANY AND BURNHAM,
Hartford, Conn.
PREFACE.
Halloween has been printed, though never publishedbefore. In the winter of 1842 I had a privateedition, of fifty copies, struck off for my friends.These have been freely loaned and circulated, tillthe book has been enquired for by strangers, at mybookseller’s; and at his instance, I now allow it toappear. Though I had not intended this, and formany private reasons rather disliked the idea ofmaking it public; I suppose, on the whole, that itwill be better to publish it now, than in after life,and to edit it myself, than to leave it to a survivor.
A curious incident suggested this little poem. Itwas written when I was but twenty. The sametheme would now inspire a very different strain;and I can approve it only as a true exhibition of themanifold emotions at work, in a mind disposed tobe religious, at that period of life when the worldentices most, and character is yet fervid and unstamped.I am willing to make it public, therefore,if the gentle few, who have heretofore been my public,will vouchsafe to consider it only in referenceto its place, between the trifles I have written beforeand after it. In its proper position I think itseffect will be happy; for it is a favorite habit ofmine to regard all that an author publishes, as hisonly complete work; in which, if he be a poet, theseveral parts will bear but the proportion of a stanzaor a canto. I think this is an ennobling view totake of any writer; but a profitable one especially,where authors have written much, and venturedoften before the world, while their opinions werein a state of progress and transition. By such a