When the Christian Ballads first appeared, I appended to the book several little poems of a different character, with the announcement that they were selected from a forthcoming volume. Although I afterwards determined not to publish that volume in a collected form, its contents have, to a great extent, found their way into print; and are from time to time reviving, and dying newspaper deaths, sometimes with the loss of limbs, and even parts more vital. I have been induced therefore to collect and arrange them, and, in an unostentatious form, to present them to the public: supposing that my friends will not be unwilling to have these early efforts, in a legitimate shape, and that others will find the volume too unpretending to deserve their censure.

These poems, except a few introduced in place of others destroyed, were written in my early years. They were begun in the Summer of 1836, when I was passing a college vacation under my father’s roof, at Auburn, in Western New York. It was my privilege there to meet the friend, to whose memory I have inscribed them; and to his musical taste, and his frequent suggestion that I should give him words for some of his favorite airs, the production of the songs and hymns in this collection, was chiefly owing. Little did I foresee that they would be published as a tribute to his beloved memory!

As motives of ambition would dictate the suppression of this boyish book, after the favorable reception bestowed by the public, on my later productions, I shall find every anticipation satisfied, if in the opinion of goodnatured critics, these Lays are not unworthy of the years in which they were written.

A. C. C.

The Sycamores, Hartford West,

August 15, 1843.