DEDICATION
(TO FIRST EDITION)
To you, dear Wife—to whom beside so well?—
True Counsellor and tried, at every shift,
I bring my "Book of Counsels:" let it tell
Largeness of love by littleness of gift;
And take this growth of foreign skies from me,
(A scholar's thanks for gentle help in toil,)
Whose leaf, "though dark," like Milton's Hœmony,
"Bears a bright golden flower, if not in this soil."
April 9, 1861.