The editor of these volumes makes grateful acknowledgment of the courtesy of Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., Harper & Brothers, Ticknor & Co., and D. Lothrop & Co., in freely permitting him to make use of poems of which they own the copyright, and of their other good offices. He feels himself indebted also to the living authors of many poems here presented, for their readiness in consenting to the use of their writings, and for the care that many of them have taken to furnish him with correct versions of poems commonly printed in inaccurate forms. He is under special obligations in this regard to General Albert Pike, who has furnished a transcript, from his own copy of a rare, privately printed volume, of the stirring ballad "Buena Vista," for which a vain search had been made.

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