Alice Meynell

INTRODUCTION

Partial collections of English poems, decided by a common subject or bounded by narrow dates and periods of literary history, are made at very short intervals, and the makers are safe from the reproach of proposing their own personal taste as a guide for the reading of others. But a general Anthology gathered from the whole of English literature--the whole from Chaucer to Wordsworth--by a gatherer intent upon nothing except the quality of poetry, is a more rare enterprise. It is hardly to be made without tempting the suspicion--nay, hardly without seeming to hazard the confession--of some measure of self-confidence. Nor can even the desire to enter upon that labour be a frequent one--the desire of the heart of one for whom poetry is veritably "the complementary life" to set up a pale for inclusion and exclusion, to add honours, to multiply homage, to cherish, to restore, to protest, to proclaim, to depose; and to gain the consent of a multitude of readers to all those acts. Many years, then--some part of a century--may easily pass between the publication of one general anthology and the making of another.

The enterprise would be a sorry one if it were really arbitrary, and if an anthologist should give effect to passionate preferences without authority. An anthology that shall have any value must be made on the responsibility of one but on the authority of many. There is no caprice; the mind of the maker has been formed for decision by the wisdom of many instructors. It is the very study of criticism, and the grateful and profitable study, that gives the justification to work done upon the strongest personal impulse, and done, finally, in the mental solitude that cannot be escaped at the last. In another order, moral education would be best crowned if it proved to have quick and profound control over the first impulses; its finished work would be to set the soul in a state of law, delivered from the delays of self- distrust; not action only, but the desires would be in an old security, and a wish would come to light already justified. This would be the second--if it were not the only--liberty. Even so an intellectual education might assuredly confer freedom upon first and solitary thoughts, and confidence

and composure upon the sallies of impetuous courage. In a word, it should make a studious anthologist quite sure about genius. And all who have bestowed, or helped in bestowing, the liberating education have given their student the authority to be free. Personal and singular the choice in such a book must be, not without right.

Claiming and disclaiming so much, the gatherers may follow one another to harvest, and glean in the same fields in different seasons, for the repetition of the work can never be altogether a repetition. The general consent of criticism does not stand still; and moreover, a mere accident has until now left a poet of genius of the past here and there to neglect or obscurity. This is not very likely to befall again; the time has come when there is little or nothing left to discover or rediscover in the sixteenth century or the seventeenth; we know that there does not lurk another Crashaw contemned, or another Henry Vaughan disregarded, or another George Herbert misplaced. There is now something like finality of knowledge at least; and therefore not a little error in the past is ready to be repaired. This is the result of time. Of the slow actions and reactions of critical taste there might be something to say, but nothing important. No loyal anthologist perhaps will consent to acknowledge these tides; he will hardly do his work well unless he believe it to be stable and perfect; nor, by the way, will he judge worthily in the name of others unless he be resolved to judge intrepidly for himself.

Inasmuch as even the best of all poems are the best upon innumerable degrees, the size of most anthologies has gone far to decide what degrees are to be gathered in and what left without. The best might make a very small volume, and be indeed the best, or a very large volume, and be still indeed the best. But my labour has been to do somewhat differently--to gather nothing that did not overpass a certain boundary-line of genius. Gray's Elegy, for instance, would rightly be placed at the head of everything below that mark. It is, in fact, so near to the work of genius as to be most directly, closely, and immediately rebuked by genius; it meets genius at close quarters and almost deserves that Shakespeare himself should defeat it. Mediocrity said its own true word in the Elegy:

"Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness

on the desert air."

But greatness had said its own word also in a sonnet:

"The summer flower is to the summer sweet Though to itself it only live and die."

The reproof here is too sure; not always does it touch so quick, but it is not seldom manifest, and it makes exclusion a simple task. Inclusion, on the other hand, cannot be so completely fulfilled. The impossibility of taking in poems of great length, however purely lyrical, is a mechanical barrier, even on the plan of the present volume; in the case of Spenser's Prothalamion, the unmanageably autobiographical and local passage makes it inappropriate; some exquisite things of Landor's are lyrics in blank verse, and the necessary rule against blank verse shuts them out. No extracts have been made from any poem, but in a very few instances a stanza or a passage has been dropped out. No poem has been put in for the sake of a single perfectly fine passage; it would be too much to say that no poem has been put in for the sake of two splendid passages or so. The Scottish ballad poetry is represented by examples that are to my mind finer than anything left out; still, it is but represented; and as the song of this multitude of unknown poets overflows by its quantity a collection of lyrics of genius, so does severally the song of Wordsworth, Crashaw, and Shelley. It has been necessary, in considering traditional songs of evidently mingled authorship, to reject some one invaluable stanza or burden--the original and ancient surviving matter of a spoilt song--because it was necessary to reject the sequel that has cumbered it since some sentimentalist took it for his own. An example, which makes the heart ache, is that burden of keen and remote poetry:

"O the broom, the bonnie, bonnie broom, The broom of Cowdenknowes!"

Perhaps some hand will gather all such precious fragments as these together one day, freed from what is alien in the work of the restorer. It is inexplicable that a generation resolved to forbid the restoration of ancient buildings should approve the eighteenth century restoration of ancient poems; nay, the architectural "restorer" is immeasurably the more respectful. In order to give us again the ancient fragments, it is happily not

necessary to break up the composite songs which, since the time of Burns, have gained a national love. Let them be, but let the old verses be also; and let them have, for those who desire it, the solitariness of their state of ruin. Even in the cases--and they are not few-- where Burns is proved to have given beauty and music to the ancient fragment itself, his work upon the old stanza is immeasurably finer than his work in his own new stanzas following, and it would be less than impiety to part the two.

I have obeyed a profound conviction which I have reason to hope will be more commended in the future than perhaps it can be now, in leaving aside a multitude of composite songs--anachronisms, and worse than mere anachronisms, as I think them to be, for they patch wild feeling with sentiment of the sentimentalist. There are some exceptions. The one fine stanza of a song which both Sir Walter Scott and Burns restored is given with the restorations of both, those restorations being severally beautiful; and the burden, "Hame, hame, hame," is printed with the Jacobite song that carries it; this song seems so mingled and various in date and origin that no apology is needed for placing it amongst the bundle of Scottish ballads of days before the Jacobites. Sir Patrick Spens is treated here as an ancient song. It is to be noted that the modern, or comparatively modern, additions to old songs full of quantitative metre--"Hame, hame, hame," is one of these--full of long notes, rests, and interlinear pauses, are almost always written in anapaests. The later writer has slipped away from the fine, various, and subtle metre of the older. Assuredly the popularity of the metre which, for want of a term suiting the English rules of verse, must be called anapaestic, has done more than any other thing to vulgarise the national sense of rhythm and to silence the finer rhythms. Anapaests came quite suddenly into English poetry and brought coarseness, glibness, volubility, dapper and fatuous effects. A master may use it well, but as a popular measure it has been disastrous. I would be bound to find the modern stanzas in an old song by this very habit of anapaests and this very misunderstanding of the long words and interlinear pauses of the older stanzas. This, for instance, is the old metre:

"Hame, hame, hame! O hame fain wad I be!"

and this the lamentable anapaestic line (from the same song):

"Yet the sun through the mirk seems to promise to me -."

It has been difficult to refuse myself the delight of including A Divine Love of Carew, but it seemed too bold to leave out four stanzas of a poem of seven, and the last four are of the poorest argument. This passage at least shall speak for the first three:

"Thou didst appear A glorious mystery, so dark, so clear, As Nature did intend All should confess, but none might comprehend."

From Christ's Victory in Heaven of Giles Fletcher (out of reach for its length) it is a happiness to extract here at least the passage upon "Justice," who looks "as the eagle

"that hath so oft compared Her eye with heaven's";

from Marlowe's poem, also unmanageable, that in which Love ran to the priestess

"And laid his childish head upon her breast"; with that which tells how Night,

"deep-drenched in misty Acheron, Heaved up her head, and half the world upon Breathed darkness forth";

from Robert Greene two lines of a lovely passage:

"Cupid abroad was lated in the night, His wings were wet with ranging in the rain";

from Ben Jonson's Hue and Cry (not throughout fine) the stanza: "Beauties, have ye seen a toy, Called Love, a little boy, Almost naked,

wanton, blind; Cruel now, and then as kind? If he be amongst ye, say; He is Venus' run-away";

from Francis Davison:

"Her angry eyes are great with tears"; from George Wither:

"I can go rest On her sweet breast That is the pride of Cynthia's train";

from Cowley:

"Return, return, gay planet of mine east"!

The poems in which these are cannot make part of the volume, but the citation of the fragments is a relieving act of love.

At the very beginning, Skelton's song to "Mistress Margery

Wentworth" had almost taken a place; but its charm is hardly fine enough. If it is necessary to answer the inevitable question in regard to Byron,

let me say that in another Anthology, a secondary Anthology, the one in which Gray's Elegy would have an honourable place, some more of Byron's lyrics would certainly be found; and except this there is no apology. If the last stanza of the "Dying Gladiator" passage, or the last stanza on the cascade rainbow at Terni,

"Love watching madness with unalterable mien,"

had been separate poems instead of parts of Childe Harold, they would have been amongst the poems that are here collected in no spirit of arrogance, or of caprice, of diffidence or doubt.

The volume closes some time before the middle of the century and the death of Wordsworth.

A. M.

[As there would be considerable overlap between the poems in this book and those already released by Project Gutenberg the text of the poems is not included in this eText. The poems that Alice selected are shown below and are followed by her comments on them.- -DP]

Anonymous. The first carol Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618) Verses before death Edmund Spenser (1553-1599) Easter Fresh spring Like as a ship Epithalamion John Lyly (1554?-1606) The Spring Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586) True love The moon Kiss Sweet judge Sleep Wat'red was my wine Thomas Lodge (1556-1625) Rosalynd's madrigal Rosaline The solitary shepherd's song Anonymous I saw my lady weep George Peele (1558?-1597) Farewell to arms Robert Greene (1560?-1592) Fawnia Sephestia's song to her child Christopher Marlowe (1562-1593) The passionate shepherd to his love Samuel Daniel (1562-1619) Sleep My spotless love Michael Drayton (1563-1631) Since there's no help Joshua Sylvester (1563-1618) Were I as base William Shakespeare (1564-1616) Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth O me! What eyes hath love put in my head Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? When in the chronicle of wasted time That time of year thou may'st in me behold How like a winter hath my absence been Being your slave, what should I do but tend When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes They that have power to hurt, and

will do Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing When to the sessions of sweet silent thought Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye The forward violet thus did I chide O lest the world should task you to recite Let me not to the marriage of true minds How oft, when thou, my music, music play'st Full many a glorious morning have I seen The expense of spirit in a waste of shame Fancy Fairies Come away Full fathom five Dirge (Fear no more the heat o' the sun) Song (Take, O take those lips away) Song (How should I your true love know) Anonymous Tom o' Bedlam Thomas Campion (circa 1567-1620) Kind are her answers Laura Her sacred bower Follow When thou must home Western wind Follow your saint Cherry-ripe Thomas Nash (1567-1601?) Spring John Donne (1573-1631) This happy dream Death Hymn to God the father The funeral Richard Barnefield (1574?-?) The nightingale Ben Jonson (1574-1637) Charis' triumph Jealousy Epitaph on Elizabeth L. H. Hymn to Diana On my first daughter Echo's lament for Narcissus An epitaph on Salathiel Pavy, a child of Queen Elizabeth's Chapel John Fletcher (1579-1625) Invocation to sleep, from Valentinian To Bacchus John Webster (-?1625) Song from the Duchess of Malfi Song from the Devil's Law-case In Earth, dirge from Vittoria Corombona William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585-1649) Song (Phoebus, arise!) Sleep, Silence' child To the nightingale Madrigal I Madrigal II Beaumont and Fletcher (1586-1616)- (1579-1625) I died true Francis Beaumont (1586-1616) On the tombs in Westminster Abbey Sir Francis Kynaston (1587-1642) To Cynthia, on concealment of her beauty Nathaniel Field (1587-1638) Matin song George Wither (1588-1667) Sleep, baby, sleep! Thomas Carew (1589- 1639) Song (Ask me no more where Jove bestows) To my inconstant mistress An hymeneal dialogue Ingrateful beauty threatened Thomas Dekker (-1638?) Lullaby Sweet content Thomas Heywood (-1649?) Good- morrow Robert Herrick (1591-1674?) To Dianeme To meadows To blossoms To daffodils To violets To primroses To daisies, not to shut so soon To the virgins, to make much of time Dress In silks Corinna's going a-maying Grace for a child Ben Jonson George Herbert (1593-1632) Holy baptism Virtue Unkindness Love The pulley The collar Life Misery James Shirley (1596-1666) Equality Anonymous (circa 1603) Lullaby (Weep you

no more, sad fountains) Sir William Davenant (1605-1668) Morning Edmund Waller (1605-1687) The rose Thomas Randolph (1606-1634?) His mistress Charles Best (-?) A sonnet of the moon John Milton (1608- 1674) Hymn on Christ's nativity L'allegro Il penseroso Lycidas On his blindness On his deceased wife On Shakespeare Song on May morning Invocation to Sabrina, from Comus Invocation to Echo, from Comus The attendant spirit, from Comus James Graham, Marquis of Montrose (1612- 1650) The vigil of death Richard Crashaw (1615?-1652) On a prayer-book sent to Mrs. M. R. To the morning Love's horoscope On Mr. G. Herbert's book Wishes to his supposed mistress Quem Vidistis Pastores etc. Music's duel The flaming heart Abraham Cowley (1618-1667) On the death of Mr. Crashaw Hymn to the light Richard Lovelace (1618-1658) To Lucasta on going to the wars To Amarantha Lucasta To Althea, from prison A guiltless lady imprisoned: after penanced The rose Andrew Marvell (1620-1678) A Horatian ode upon Cromwell's return from Ireland The picture of T. C. in a prospect of flowers The nymph complaining of death of her fawn The definition of love The garden Henry Vaughan (1621-1695) The dawning Childhood Corruption The night The eclipse The retreat The world of light Scottish Ballads Helen of Kirconnell The wife of Usher's well The dowie dens of Yarrow Sweet William and May Margaret Sir Patrick Spens Hame, hame, hame Border Ballad A lyke-wake dirge John Dryden (1631-1700) Ode (Thou youngest virgin-daughter of the skies) Aphre Behn (1640-1689) Song, from Abdelazar Joseph Addison (1672-1719) Hymn (The spacious firmament on high) Alexander Pope (1688-1744) Elegy William Cowper (1731-1800) Lines on receiving his mother's picture Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1743-1825) Life William Blake (1757-1828) The land of dreams The piper Holy Thursday The tiger To the muses Love's secret Robert Burns (1759-1796) To a mouse The farewell William Wordsworth (1770-1850) Why art thou silent? Thoughts of a Briton on the subjugation of Switzerland It is a beauteous evening, calm and free On the extinction of the Venetian Republic O friend! I know not Surprised by joy To Toussaint L'ouverture With ships the sea was sprinkled The world Upon Westminster bridge, Sept. 3, 1802 When I have borne in memory Three years she grew The daffodils The solitary reaper Elegiac stanzas To H. C.

'Tis said that some have died for love The pet lamb Stepping westward The childless father Ode on intimations of immortality Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) Proud Maisie A weary lot is thine The Maid of Neidpath Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) Kubla Khan Youth and age The rime of the ancient mariner Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864) Rose Aylmer Epitaph Child of a day Thomas Campbell (1767-1844) Hohenlinden Earl March Charles Lamb (1775-1835) Hester Allan Cunningham (1784-1842) A wet sheet and a flowing sea George Noel Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1823) The Isles of Greece Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) Hellas Wild with weeping To the night To a skylark To the moon The question The waning moon Ode to the west wind Rarely, rarely comest thou The invitation, to Jane The recollection Ode to heaven Life of life Autumn Stanzas written in dejection near Naples Dirge for the year A widow bird The two spirits John Keats (1795-1821) La Belle Dame sans merci On first looking into Chapman's Homer To sleep The gentle south Last sonnet Ode to a nightingale Ode on a Grecian urn Ode to Autumn Ode to Psyche Ode to Melancholy Hartley Coleridge (1796-1849) She is not fair