POEMS NOT IN THE COLLECTIONS: meaning such general "selections" as are in vogue and accessible to the ordinary readers (not students) of poetry. Except Keats' ODE TO PSYCHE (lately given by Trench), and some half dozen incompletely or incorrectly rendered from the earlier Poets, the poems here printed I have not been able to find in any popular anthology. Whether this neglect has been caused by a want of taste or by insufficient industry, of the purveyors for an unjudging public, it may not be of much consequence to determine; only when the works of Sidney, Landor, and Horne, have been passed by, there is no great ground for surprise at the overlooking of any others. I do not pretend to have, even now, stripped the poetic orchard. I have but picked a basket-full, part from branches uncared for, albeit well known, part from trees hereto unregarded, as samples of a plentiful remainder left for later gatherers. Possibly, my work having been long in preparation, later editions of books examined, or some unseen newer collection, may contain a few of the poems here printed: but of this there does not appear sufficient likelihood to require another inquest. B VI For my text, I have sought the best authorities: yet may not always be correct. One wilful alteration needs explaining, and asks excuse. I can not be content to believe that Fletcher (page 57) could have written a line so faulty as "With her bells dim." or have so inadequately described the primrose - which is not a bell at all. The line I have printed instead might have been written, and mistaken by either transcriber or printer. The hair-bell slim would not be out of place in the Song. Of the wood-cuts I may confess that I have but cared to adorn my pages with something less monotonous and less impertinent than printers' furniture, while yet avoiding the imposition of what it has been a custom to call illustrations. Some of the cuts (about a third) have been used before in a volume of my own Poems (1865), long out of print. For anything unusual or unsatisfactory in the production of the book I ask consideration: the whole of it, drawing, engraving, composition, and printing (the printing my first attempt), being the work of my own hands, at odd times, with long intervals, and many hindrances. W. J. L. New-Haven, Conn., U. S. A. 1882 |