Poems (Rice)/PREFATORY
PREFATORY.
This volume includes nearly all the published and manuscript poems that have been preserved among Mrs. Rice's papers, and is now offered to her friends as a last and fitting memento of her love. It is believed that it will be dear to them all; not only for the many graceful verses which it contains, and the tender memories these awaken, but more especially because it is her own record of a life in whose thoughts and emotions they have shared, and which they prize the more now that it is a lost treasure.
Many of Mrs. Rice's poems were called forth by events in the lives of those she loved, or by scenes in which she took part; and all reveal that liveliness of fancy, that warmth of feeling, and quick, rare sympathy so endearing to all who knew her. The earlier pieces, written at Melrose, are pictures of the natural beauties about her there, which she always loved to recall, while those composed during her residence in Boston reflect the fuller life and more stirring public events of those later years. Preceding her own poems, will be found a few affectionate tributes written at her death by sorrowing friends.