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viii |
PREFACE. |
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some songs which shall make our Blake and Vernon, our Anson and Exmouth more than names to them. If I succeed, I shall rightly feel that I have laboured at a work which may be held to be even of national importance.
I have used the ordinary language of the people, intending my songs to be such as can be felt and sung by the class for which they are written. I have trusted to the grandeur of the incidents narrated and the dramatic truth of the feelings uttered, to interest and stir my readers. If it be urged that the length of some of my songs renders them unsuitable for singing, I reply that in the intervals of leisure which a sailor has, he will as readily listen to a ballad as to a song. A forecastle audience requires what the hearers of our old ballads demanded—plenty of stirring incidents and strong, true feeling simply expressed. These I have sought to give. My success or failure will be determined by the adoption or neglect of my songs by our blue jackets themselves. To them I send forth my volume, not without a strong hope that I shall not have written for them in vain.
I have concluded my volume with two poems connected with the sea.
The pleasant way in which my ' Songs for Sailors' have been received by my literary brethren and the people, lead me to hope these Sea Songs will not be unwelcome to English readers. |
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