Written on Christmas Day, 1795 Written after visiting the Convent of Arrabida PREFACE. THE earliest pieces in these Juvenile and Minor Poems were written before the writer had left school; between the date of these and of the latest there is an interval of six and forty years: as much difference, therefore, may be perceived in them, as in the different stages of life from boyhood to old age. Some of the earliest appeared in a little volume published at Bath in the autumn of 1794, with this title:"Poems, containing the Retrospect, &c. by Robert Lovell and Robert Southey, 1795;" and with this motto · At the end of that volume, Joan of Arc was announced as to be published by subscription. Others were published at Bristol, 1797, in a single volume, with this motto from Akenside: Goddess of the Lyre,— with thee comes Majestic Truth; and where Truth deigns to come |