T Preface It HIS volume has been prepared from a different point of view from that which governed the preceding volumes in this series. To most of us poetry comes to have a very personal relation. is solace in our sorrow, inspiration in our days of darkness, friends when we are most alone, and withal it brings with it poignant, indescribable pleasure out of bitterness, that makes us feel that life is worth living, love worth loving, the struggle. onward worth its pain; and to the ardent solitary it is much more than all these - a whole world of blended émotions that cannot be described. Poetry has been this. to. me, and so a great deal of personal affection has gone into this volume. In the face of such personal devotion, as to a living friend, analysis of the technique of the art seems out of place. My own pleasure, however, has come from comparatively few poems. When I first began to study poetry I selected certain poems which seemed to me instinct with the revelation of life. I marked them heavily with pencil or pen, and when I wanted the personal pleasure of poetry in its most exquisite form I read over one of these marked poems. I felt that a poem did not have its full value to me till I had read it a dozen or forty or a hundred times. So I have never had time to read much poetry, nor do I think that the average reader ought to attempt to do so. I feel that "complete works" are a bugbear. They are like ore, of which five per cent is gold and ninety-five per cent is dross. Or, to change the figure a little, I find here and there a divine jewel of a poem set in common quartz, and it is that jewel which is all to me. I have often wished I had all my jewels set in one pocket-piece of a book that I could carry about with me and have always at hand. I have often thought how few people read poetry, and how many might if they only knew how. But the ordinary man cannot spend years in sifting out the jewels from the sand. He takes down his Wordsworth and at once plunges into a dreary desert called "The Excursion." What wonder he quickly closes the book, and never opens it again! Browning is quite as tantalizing. He has a few gems and a mass of common rock that only a few can really make use of. .... I have not been able to put into this volume by any means all. the poems I myself enjoy reading, and I know there are many others who will miss favorites. I have tried, however, to give a reasonable introduction to each of the great poets, and now and then a poem by some one who seems to have more fame as the author of this poem than as a poet in the poet's full character. In the selections from the earlier writers I have followed largely Palgrave's famous "Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics," which has long been known as the best of its kind. It was compiled fifty years ago (I refer to the first series only), and as much more of good poetry is now to be added. He was most successful in choosing from the poets most remote, least successful in selecting from the work of his personal friends, as we may see in his second series. Following Palgrave, anthologists have arranged their selections by subjects, or by schools and related groups. I think, however, that it is poets that we study more than poems. Hence I have called my book "The Great English Poets," not "Great English Poems." The greater part of the volume is devoted to seventeen poets of the first rank, who have been selected not only as being among the greatest, but as being representative. Quite as many great poems, proportionally, will be found in the second part, but the personalities of the poets do not make so universal an appeal. I have included a very, very few of more recent writers, but most have been omitted because yet too near us to be accepted by us as standard. The order of arrangement is chronological, with reference to birth. The introductions to the principal poets are more brief than I should have liked, and are intended; chiefly to give the beginner the right point of view in taking up the study of a poet he has not yet; learned to love. Great care has been taken to 'secure a perfect text. Every line has been compared word by word with the best standard editions. Acknowledgments must be made to Miss Alice Corbin for valuable assistance in making the selection. The introduction to Rossetti, Swinburne, and Morris follows somewhat closely, though without quoting, essays by Mr. William Morton Payne. The selections from Longfellow, Emerson, Whittier, Holmes, and Lowell are used by permission of and by special arrangement with Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., the authorized publishers of the writings of these authors. THE EDITOR. |