A Year Book of Selections from the British and American Poets, Edited by FREDERIC LAWRENCE KNOWLES Editor of "Cap and Gown," "Golden Treas- PREFACE THERE are year-books many and collections of verse interminable; yet the idea of arranging a general anthology in the form of a calendar of selections for every day, may, so far as the editor knows, claim at least novelty as its excuse for being. Similar ideas have been embodied in book form, but never exactly this idea; that, namely, of including only notable short poems, mainly lyrical, from the pens of English and American writers, and of so arranging the selections that one or two may be read or committed to memory daily. Mainly lyrical, we have said, since a number of poems are rather epigrammatic, or elegiac, or narrative, than in any strict sense song-like. The book will be found, however, to be so permeated by the lyrical spirit, that a few deviations from orthodox canons may be forgiven. Nor would the editor wish the word famous to be interpreted too rigidly. The great majority of the selections have obtained the suffrages of time. Aʼlimited number are drawn from contemporary sources, and have scarcely had opportunity to prove the strength of their hold on popular esteem. Some, also, are less widely known by the mass of readers than one could wish, but have already compelled praise from competent critics, and thus won a secure if a more limited fame. It would have been easy by including only one selection for each day to have placed on every page a poem which should be both famous and unquestionably lyrical. But it seemed better to present a larger number of poems at the expense, in a few instances, of conformity to conventional standards. "A great critic on songs," wrote Robert Burns to Thomson in 1795, "says that Love and Wine are the exclusive themes for song-writing." This certainly is only half the truth, even if song is here used in its narrower sense. Are there not religious songs, songs of friendship, of parting, of parental affection, of patriotism, of nature, of grief? As to bacchanalian songs, one is surprised to discover how few approach the first order of excellence. Barry Cornwall's attempts are examples of mere posing. He was the most abstemious of men, and his laudations of "wine, boys, wine," are as little convincing as his praise of the ocean: "I'm on the sea! I'm on the sea! I am where I would ever be," when he never could be induced to venture on the voyage from Dover to Calais. Burns's "Willie Brew'd a Peck o' Maut" is justly called by Mr. Henley "a little masterpiece of drunken fancy," but it hardly finds a place in our collection. Burns, of course, has written others nearly as good, and Peacock penned several; so, too, Moore and others. But the editor of this compilation was not prepared to find so few good drinking-songs in comparison with the number of superior love lytics. When we turn to the theme of love, we find ourselves at once in a field of lyric production wellnight exhaustless. Yet even in the age when the poets carolled of love as naturally as mating birds, we have lyrics of contemplation like "Blow, Blow, thou Winter Wind," "Sweet be the Thoughts that Savour of Content," and "The Character of a Happy Life." The themes for songwriters, indeed, are practically unlimited. But if its themes are so varied, the true lyric has very exacting limitations. It must possess a singing quality as distinguished from the telling or narrative quality of the epic; it must be subjective and personal, although the emotion must be of universal appeal; it must be simple, as opposed to a complex form like the drama; it must have unity, and must be brief. As regards metrical structure, however, there is the widest liberty. Not only is the variety of stanza forms unlimited, and the order or arrangement of rhymes at the option of the versifier, but rhyme may be quite dispensed with. For are not Lamb's "Old Familiar Faces," Tennyson's "Tears, Idle Tears," and Longfellow's "Golden Milestone" examples of true lyrics? On the other hand it is equally obvious that such poems as Thanatopsis," and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed," are not lyrics, though they are informed with much of the lyrical spirit. 66 In several instances the editor of this book has omitted lines or stanzas when a distinct gain in unity would result, and in a few cases, too, extracts from long poems have been presented apart from their context; but in practically all such instances as the latter, a note has been made of the excision. A few of the lyrical divisions of Tennyson's "In Memoriam," also, have been printed as complete poems under individual titles. For titles to a number of poems the editor has been indebted to those suggested by other modern compilers, notably Mr. Palgrave. The editor regrets that he has been prevented by copyright restrictions from representing Stevenson, Field, and Lanier. For the same reason, he has been forced to give American verse in general less adequate representation than British. Whittier is omitted, since his most noteworthy lyrics are all too long for the limits of a single page. With few exceptions, however, the compiler has been able to make unrestricted choice among the treasures of English verse, finding his only serious barrier in the length of the poems, a good many, such as the inimitable |