.:m'->''^^ :i•i■ Class IiSA?^Q3_ Book ^ P, ^ igOT ° V\\Oc^ CorausHT DEPOSm 4: NOTE For permission to print the letters and poems in this volume thanks are due to Mrs. John Hay. The frontispiece is an etching by Sidney L. Smith from a photograph of John Hay taken about 1860. A Poet in Exiley^ OHN HAY was born a poet; he achieved fame as statesman, diplomat, and man-of- letters. And because of this manifold achieve- ment there was vouchsafed him little leisure or opportunity for the pursuit of the poetic muse that had smiled on him at his birth. Too many honors are not easy to reconcile with the exactments of a goddess who de- mands one's sole allegiance, and so the poet's over-generous endowment, which came to him both from within and from without, forced him, if not to turn his back upon his muse, at least to consign her to a secluded niche. " To him the parting of the ways came early ; and what was there in our literary atmosphere and opportunity sixty years ago, to make po- etry the vocation of any thorough trained, aspiring, resolute man ? " It was with longing and regret that John Hay turned away from that poetic muse, who ! would have claimed him for her own. " The ' Nation called for workers"; the call was I sounded by the voice of Lincoln. John Hay, the man of action, answered, and the poet I John Hay accepted his inevitable banish- ment, mtt^mm :' Yet after the accomplishment of "daily tasks," the poet did return from time to time j^ to sing, and for these " songs," though they were but a presage of what might have been, we must be grateful, as we are for those oner- ous " tasks " so faithfully performed.