COTTAGE LIFE. A SERIES OF POEMS ILLUSTRATIVE OF AMERICAN SCENERY, AND OF THE ASSOCIATIONS, BY THOMAS C. UPHAM. FOURTH EDITION. PORTLAND: PUBLISHED BY SANBORN & CARTER. 1852. P.AB Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, by THOMAS C. UPHAM, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Maine. STEREOTYPED BY NEW ENGLAND TYPE AND STEREOTYPE FOUNDERY, BOSTON. PREFACE. In early life I was led to form an acquaintance with those classes of persons, whose occupations and feelings are attempted to be described in the following poems. My youthful associations are with the lakes, the rivers, and the mountains of New Hampshire; and with the hardy and industrious people who dwell among them. Mingling for successive years at their firesides, sharing in their sympathies, affected by the constant disclosure of a humble and devout piety, it seemed to me that American Cottage Life, in some respects, unlike that of any other country, possessed great attractions for the heart as well as the imagination. No pen, so far as I was acquainted, had undertaken to describe it. Aware of my own incompetency to describe it suitably, it still appeared to me, that I might properly make an attempt, however imperfect it might be, in the hopes that others might follow, and do full justice to a subject so interesting. If these poems are ever read to any great extent, they will be read by those, whose life they delineate. And as it is religious feeling, which, more than anything else, 1* WOR 19 FEB' |