Introduction xi " manners. » is no poem here by the Father of English Poetry. It would have been as hard to understand the omission of Spenser's ' Epithalamion," but that Mr. Palgrave has explained to us that he did not consider it "in harmony with ”mid-Victorian Happily manners have changed much since midVictorian times, and we may all now read the “Epithalamion” without being expected to blush. Such a provincialism as that excuse for the omission of the loveliest love song in the language is one real blot in this book. The same midVictorian « manners” probably excluded Marvell's “TO His Coy Mistress," a passionate and beautiful song that Tennyson loved well enough, for we read of his “special admiration” of it ; “ delighting to read,” Mr. Palgrave tells us in those“ Personal Recollections" quoted above, “ delighting to read with a voice hardly yet to me silent, and dwelling more than once on the magnificent hyperbole, the powerful union of pathos and humour in the lines. ... And that it seems to me is almost all there is to say by way of criticism : and while every man will of course prefer to make his own anthology, in which “ the best” will be the best beloved, no one has been able to make an anthology that has been more generally received by Englishmen as in itself almost a work of art, as really fulfilling precisely its promise to be the Golden Treasury of the best songs and lyrical poems in the English language. E. H, 1906. a The following is a list of the works of F. T. Palgrave :Preciosa, a tale, 1852 ; Idyls and Songs, 1854 ; The Works of Alfred de Musset (Oxford Essays), 1855; The Passionate Pilgrim (prose), 1858; The Golden Treasury, 1861 (second series, 1896); Memoir of Clough (with edition of poems), 1862 ; Handbook to the Fine Art Collection in International Exhibition, 1862 ; Edition of Shakespeare's poems, 1865; Essays on Art, 1866; Biographical and Critical Memoir of Scott (prefixed to poems), 1866; Hymns, 1867; Five Days' Entertainments at Wentworth Grange (Stories for Children), 1868; Lyrical Poems, 1871; A Lyme Garland: verses mainly written at Lyme Regis, etc., 1874; The Children's Treasury of English Song, 1875 ; Chrysomela (selections from Herrick), 1877 ; Visions of England (verse), 1881 ; Selections from Tennyson, 1885; Ode for the 21st June 1887; Treasury of Sacred Song, 1889; Amenophis and other verse, 1892 ; Landscape in Poetry (Oxford Lectures), 1897. 1 CONTENTS PAGE . . 10 45 Fidele 740 The Unfaithful Shepherdess 27 8 42 Blow, Blow, thou Winter Wind 29 17 55 This Life, which seems so Fair 40 17 Colin 83 . . 84 68 . . . PAGE PAGB 63 Song for St. Cecilia's Day 52 91 Cherry-Ripe 64 Late Massacre in Piedmont 54 92 The Poetry of Dress 65 Cromwell's Return from Ireland 55 93 Whenas in Silks my Julia goes 84 69 Tombs in Westminster Abbey. 64 66 97 Love not me for Comely Grace 86 66 98 Not, Celia, that I juster am 86 68 101 Encouragements to a Lover 89 79 Wishes for Supposed Mistress 72 107 Fair Helen 85 To the Lady Margaret Ley 78 113 Il Penseroso 89 Go, Lovely Rose. 81 . 96 98 . . . . . . 140 The Progress of Poesy 142 156 John Anderson 169 152 160 Solitude of Alexander Selkirk. 175 . 159 163. The Dying Man in his Garden 179 161 165 Life! I know not what thou art 181 145 A Wish . . 187 192 Where shall the Lover rest 187 193 La Belle Dame Sans Merci 171 None of Beauty's Daughters 189 172 Lines to an Indian Air 190 195 The Flight of Love . 174 She was a Phantom of Delight 191 197 The Maid of Neidpath 194 201 At the mid hour of Night 180 A Slumber did my Spirit seal . 196 203 One word is too often profaned 219 181 Lord Ullin's Daughter 196 204 Song of Donald the Black 183 Freedom and Love. · 199 200 Ye Mariners of England. 209 On the Castle of Chillon . |