Puslapio vaizdai
PDF
„ePub“

GIFT OF

A.F. MORRISON

COPYRIGHT, 1882,

BY THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.

TO THE MEMORY OF

My Friend

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW,

THIS WORK IS DEDICATED.

THY name, O poet, shall go sounding on
While breaks the wave on shore of Machigonne.*
The sky and ocean whence thy genius stole
The charm which draws the universal soul,

Alone remain the same as on that day
Now lying five and seventy years away.

These type the fate of what thy voice hath sung;
Like sea and sky, the heart is ever young.
Man's joys and griefs a thousand years ago,
Throb still the same as do the waters flow;
The light and dark, as then, divide his sky,
Though earth has seen so many millions die.
Who best meets man, not men, as ages move,
Will be secure of human praise and love;
Who best meets man will share, and only he,
With heaven and ocean, immortality.

• The Indian name of Portland.

M92352

C. F. B

PREFACE.

THOUGH text-books of every variety abound, and many persons assert the old to be better than the new, yet every year sees no inconsiderable number added to their list. It is folly to suppose that any one prepares a work merely for the sake of doing it, and careful examination proves that every successor in a given field has some superiority of plan, comprehensiveness, detail, or material to recommend it. Something it may lack that others have; but it also has something that others lack. So it is with compilations of poetry. Every one is found faulty somewhere, by somebody, nor can it be imagined possible, with the varied tastes of men, that the work of one should be so allembracing as to leave no intelligent reader disappointed. The compiler of this volume has not pretended to make what she has never found,—a perfect compilation, and will be gratified if this prove so well done as to save it from the charge of being a supernumerary. Whatever its defects, it still carries out, in the main, her aim in undertaking it, which was,

First. To represent the genius of woman as fairly as that of man.

Second. To the extent of the compiler's power, to give those poets their just dues who have hitherto not had them. Third. To quote largely, though in brief passages, from those authors whose works, through their uninviting looks, length, or subject, or the undue bias imparted by ridicule and one-sided criticism, are generally seldom read, and but imperfectly represented.

Fourth. To bring together not only copious extracts from the standard and popular writers of Great Britain and America, but also a goodly number of poems from the very latest volumes of both countries, and a representation, through one poem, at least, of those whose writings are as yet uncollected, and whose names have not appeared in other compilations.

The alphabetic arrangement of the work-prepared virtually in portions; not offered complete to the printers-demanded unusual readiness in the choice and supply of material, and the temporary omissions of chance or necessity placed authors and poems desired for the body of the work in its supplement. A glance at the latter will quickly discover, from its value, that, though coming after, it is no afterthought.

A number of names on the compiler's list were, through accident, wholly omitted, while others were left out through want of space on account of the length of poems, or because extracts could not be seasonably obtained. Positive knowledge of insufficient space excluded translations from the work, and though ballads and anonymous poems were in the plan, there was found to be very meagre room for even these.

In comparing the extent of representation, it will be remembered that the space occupied by poems, no less than their number, must be considered. Other things being equal, the compiler welcomes brevity, and the more this element prevails in an author, or the more his works admit of short and striking quotation, the more variously can he be represented. It often happens that one long lyric claims as much room as five or six short ones, while a mere glance at the index would seem to indicate injustice.

To the editor's sincere regret, and through circumstances over which she had no control, JOAQUIN MILLER, JOHN WHITE CHADWICK, and WALT WHITMAN are unrepresented in this volume; while the poems from HELEN JACKSON, DR. JOYCE, and EDGAR FAWCETT are, from a like necessity, not those at first selected from their works.

« AnkstesnisTęsti »