Legends and Lyrics

In Legends and Lyrics, First Series, Adelaide Ann Procter offers a moving blend of lyric meditation and narrative poetry, introduced by Charles Dickens and dedicated to Matilda M. Hays. Across sorrowful Christmas visions, intimate reflections, and quietly dramatic tales, the collection returns again and again to faith, love, loss, patience, and spiritual hope. A dying child is comforted by an angel who reveals that his own heavenly peace began with a poor orphan girl's single act of kindness, while other poems ponder anonymous graves, fading seasons, and the hidden worth of lives the world forgets. Elsewhere, a cathedral organist's music and devotion sanctify ordinary existence, and a young man's lifelong memory of a radiant child becomes a meditation on time, devotion, and loss. Whether addressing grief as teacher, urging humility and endurance, or finding true honor in service and self-surrender, these poems search for consolation and moral meaning in the midst of earthly change. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.