OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS AMERICAN BRANCH: 35 WEST 32ND STREET 1927 COPYRIGHT 1927 BY OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS AMERICAN BRANCH PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 918 04 PREFACE THE 'HE chief purpose of a prefatory note to an anthology is to make due acknowledgment to the poets and publishers who have permitted the use of their property. For their courteous co-operation in the present instance, I am glad to join The Oxford University Press in this expression of thanks. A brief word may be added as to the work itself. The Oxford Book of American Verse does not attempt to be in the least encyclopaedic. It is a comparatively small anthology, and cannot pretend to compete with a work such as Mr. Stedman's invaluable book was in its day, and still is for the period it covers; nor does it compare for our own time with the thorough and extensive compendium of Miss Munroe and Mrs. Henderson. The Oxford Book, after the manner of anthologies, takes a much more skimming view of the whole field of American verse, and it must be confessed a rather more irresponsible one. Not that I have felt licensed to indulge any waywardness or perversity of preference in making the selections. On the contrary, since I have been given so free a hand, I have felt all the more a need for judicious care, and for a fineness of poetic judgment much more accurate than will here appear. Some years ago I was employed with others in compiling a ten-volume work entitled The World's Best Poetry. A number of eminent men were to be engaged to edit the various volumes, and we wanted James Whitcomb Riley to take charge of the volume of Humorous Verse. 646326 |