Halloween has been printed, though never published before. In the winter of 1842 I had a private edition, of fifty copies, struck off for my friends. These have been freely loaned and circulated, till the book has been enquired for by strangers, at my bookseller’s; and at his instance, I now allow it to appear. Though I had not intended this, and for many private reasons rather disliked the idea of making it public; I suppose, on the whole, that it will be better to publish it now, than in after life, and to edit it myself, than to leave it to a survivor.

A curious incident suggested this little poem. It was written when I was but twenty. The same theme would now inspire a very different strain; and I can approve it only as a true exhibition of the manifold emotions at work, in a mind disposed to be religious, at that period of life when the world entices most, and character is yet fervid and unstamped. I am willing to make it public, therefore, if the gentle few, who have heretofore been my public, will vouchsafe to consider it only in reference to its place, between the trifles I have written before and after it. In its proper position I think its effect will be happy; for it is a favorite habit of mine to regard all that an author publishes, as his only complete work; in which, if he be a poet, the several parts will bear but the proportion of a stanza or a canto. I think this is an ennobling view to take of any writer; but a profitable one especially, where authors have written much, and ventured often before the world, while their opinions were in a state of progress and transition. By such a rule, I hope my own friends will judge whatever I have already, or may hereafter, put forth. I should be sorry if Politiano’s experience were not always mine, with regard to all I have yet published:

A. C. C.

St. John’s Rectory, Hartford,

May, 1844.