If you want a measure of the literary quality of this work, just read the first sentence. I put it in Common Knowledge. It took about five minutes to type. It's a page long! It's not just run on, it's subsonic-transcontinental-flight long. Oy. And most of the stuff Lyle labelled "ballads" is bad pastoral poetry. There are a few good items in here, but you'll find them in collections that won't make you want to chew your leg off as you try to find them. Lyle needed an editor the way the Sahara Desert needs water. Better yet, he could have used about six editors. Ugh. ( )