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INTRODUCTION

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THE attempt is made in this collection to bring together the best short poems in the English language from the time of Spenser to the present day, together with a body of verse which, if not great poetry, has at least the distinction of wide popularity. In what degree this attempt has been successful the book itself must show; but it may be worth while to state briefly certain purposes which the compiler had in mind when he undertook the task, and which he has carried out as faithfully as he could.

These purposes were to include nothing which did not seem to him to ring true, but, at the same time, to recognize the validity of popular taste as well as of classical taste; to preserve in authentic form certain fugitive poems whicheveryone admires but which few know where to find; tor lay emphasis upon the lighter forms of verse; and to pay especial attention to the work of living English and Ameri can poets, particularly of the younger generation.

It would be idle to suppose that everything included here will appeal to everyone as good poetry. Tastes in poetry differ even more inevitably than tastes in food; but the compiler has tried to spread his table in such a manner that every healthy taste may be abundantly satisfied without having to eat of any dish it does not care for. In one respect, he is free to confess that, in arranging the banquet, he has not relied upon his own taste alone. There is a note of pensive sentiment-the note which Longfellow knew how to strike so successfully-which, according to Professor Trent, "finds an echo in the universal human heart," and this note the compiler did not feel justified in disregarding, or even regarding lightly, simply because his own heart happens to be indifferent to it. Nor has he been deterred from using a poem because it was the common

property of anthologists, or tempted to include any because it was little known. For this is a collection, not of curious or unusual, but of favorite verse.

There will be much difference of opinion as to the merit of the selections from the work of living writers included here. Where the test of time is not available, and the stamp of wide approval is withheld, there remains only the test of individual preference, and here the compiler has consulted no judgment but his own. He has been hampered by human limitations as applied to a mass of material so overwhelming in bulk; but he hopes that the selection will be found fairly representative, and that no really great poem of recent years has been overlooked. And while the restrictions of copyright have somewhat limited the representation given certain American poets, he believes that American verse, as a whole, receives far more attention here than in any other general anthology.

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of Practically the first decision the compiler made with regard to this work was that it should be a collection, not -of fragments, but of complete poems; and this, while it did not, of course, preclude the use of poems within poemssof lyrics from the dramatists, of songs from Scott's met\rical romances, or of such parentheses as Byron's stanzas son Waterloo-while it did not prevent the excision of such obvious digressions as the final stanzas of Timrod's "Spring," and while it was not construed to mean that a sequence such as "Sonnets from the Portuguese" must be given entire, has, nevertheless, resulted in some deprivations. No passages will be found here from any of Shakespeare's plays, no stanzas from the "Fairy Queen," no lines from "Paradise Lost." But the compiler feels that such loss, if it be a loss, is more than counterbalanced by the satisfaction of knowing that, throughout the book, one gets complete the poet's thought, as he embodied it in his verse.

The decision to give every poem entire has resulted in a few exclusions from another cause than that of length; for in some lyrics, especially of Restoration days, there is oc

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casionally a line or stanza too free for modern taste. It is for this reason that Suckling's inimitable "Ballad of a Wedding" will not be found between these covers, since it contains one stanza certainly, and perhaps three or four, not fitted for a Home Book of Verse." A few other poems which had got through the winnowing as far as the first proofs, were finally cut out for the same reason, rather than presented in a mangled or Bowdlerized version.

And, as already mentioned, the enforcement of copyright restrictions has prevented the use of a small number of poems which the compiler wished to include. There are a few publishers who seem to regard with pronounced disfavor any collection such as this, and who will permit the use of poems which they control either not at all, or only upon conditions which are, in effect, prohibitive. Because of this, the admirers of Henry Cuyler Bunner will look in vain through these pages for any example of his delicate art; and for the same reason a few other American poets are either absent altogether or only meagerly represented. But the losses from this cause are unimportant when compared with the great body of the work, and the compiler feels that he has little reason to complain. For the most part, his requests for copyright permissions have been granted with a most gratifying courtesy and generosity.

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Great care has been taken to secure accuracy of text, a task whose difficulty only the anthologist can appreciate. In so far as possible, the copy used was taken from the standard editions of the various poets; and where there was any question of authenticity, as in the case of fugitive poems, the poem, if the author was living and could be found, was submitted to him for correction. In the older poems, where there were varied readings of equal authority, the editor has used that which seemed to him the best; and where there have been repeated revisions of a poem, that has been chosen which seemed the better version. This has not been, in every case, the final version; for, as in the case of Coates Kinney's "Rain on the Roof," over-refinement

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