Francis Turner Palgrave

"This little Collection differs, it is believed, from others in the attempt made to include in it all the best original lyrical pieces and songs in our language, by writers not living, and none besides the best. The Editor will regard as his fittest readers those who love poetry so well, that he can offer them nothing not already known and valued."

"When once the mind has raised itself to grasp and to delight in excellence, those who love most will be found to love most wisely."

"The azure lake is argent now Beneath the pale moonshine: I seek a sign of hope in heaven: Fair Polestar! thou are mine. A thousand other beacons blaze; I follow thee alone..."

"In the season of white wild roses We two went hand in hand: But now in the ruddy autumn Together already we stand."

"Time's corrosive dewdrop eats The giant warrior to a crust Of earth in earth and rust in rust."

"Let the children play And sit like flowers upon thy grave And crown with flowers,—that hardly have A briefer blooming-tide than they."

"Sleep puts out silent fingers, And leads me back to the roar Of the dead salt sea that vomits Wrecks of the past ashore."

"I see the lost Love in beauty Go gliding over the main: I feel the ancient sweetness, The worm and the wormwood again."

"Earth all one tomb lies round me, Domed with an iron sky: And God Himself in His power, God cannot save me! I cry."

"With the cry I wake;—and around me The mother and child at her feet Breathe peace in even whispers; And the night falls heavy and sweet."

"In the hollow Silver voices ripple and cry Follow, O follow!"

"Follow, O follow!—and we follow"

"The Sun whispers, O remember! You have but thirty days to run, O sweet September!"

"Kiss and cling to them, kiss and leave them, Bright and beguiling:— Bright and beguiling, as She who glances Along the shore and the meadows along, And sings for heart's delight, and dances Crowned with apples, and ruddy, and strong:— Can we see thee, and not remember Thy sun-brown cheek and hair sun-golden, O sweet September?"

"There is a garden where lilies And roses are side by side; And all day between them in silence The silken butterflies glide."

"I may not enter the garden, Though I know the road thereto; And morn by morn to the gateway I see the children go."

"They bring back light on their faces; But they cannot bring back to me What the lilies say to the roses, Or the songs of the butterflies be."

"The monument outlasting bronze was promised well by bards of old."

"Our hope is less to last through Art than deeper searching of the heart, than broader range of uttered truth."

"Shakespeare's stage must hold the glass to every age."

"A thousand forms and passions glow Upon the world-wide canvas. So With larger scope our art we ply; And if the crown be harder won, Diviner rays around it run, With strains of fuller harmony."

"I thought that the poets in the anthologies were the only real poets, that their being in the anthologies was proof of this, though some were classified as "great" and others as "minor." I owed much to those anthologies: Silver Pennies; the constant outflow of volumes edited by Louis Untermeyer; The Cambridge Book of Poetry for Children; Palgrave's Golden Treasury; the Oxford Book of English Verse. But I had no idea that they reflected the taste of a particular time or of particular kinds of people."