Excerpt from Songs of the Heart and Soul Proem I can't recall what age I was when rhymes began to play Their fancies in my heart and brain, - "I've always been that way"; And 'way back there in early youth the very air to me In Summer time was thick with sounds of sweetest harmony. I loved the haunts of nature, and I loved the songs of birds; I loved the wooded pasture lands, where fed the quiet herds; I loved the dusk of country lanes, when Summer's day was gone; I loved the night with all its stars, I loved the breath of dawn. The cooing dove, the bobolink, the blue-bird and the thrush Made melody all day for me; and in the evening's hush The whip-poor-will, the crickets, and the frogs down by the stream Lulled me to sleep, and filled my soul with many a happy dream. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.