The Harp of Erin: A Book of Ballad-Poetry and of Native Song (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Harp of Erin: A Book of Ballad-Poetry and of Native Song (Classic Reprint)In this desire to make a willing audience, I have held In view now, as before, the young and the child, as well as the adult. Believing that the feelings awakened In early life effect the widest influence on the well -being of our social state, I have not scorned the introduction of songs and ballads likely to interest, and stimulate thou ht and feeling, in the early stages Of life. Although have sought rather for such food as would be relished by the plain man, of sound mind and heart, than to please the fastidious palate of the critic and scholar, yet the unsophisticated scholar mn not fail to recognize in the ballads which I have given from the able pens of samuel ferguson, george sigerson, william allingham, john campion, robert D. Joyce, aubrey DE vere, and others, compositions which will interest him; while the man of plain education will be attracted by their beauties. Like the works of Nature, they speak to young and old,1iterate and illiterate, a common language, under stplod1 by; all. They touch the heart, the emotions of w Ic ace eer, and peasant u on a common level, aiid is 5:2n democratic fire 0 the world.