point." We must respect Mr. Masters' attitude in this, if we cannot help deeply regretting the absence of his poetry here. None of the work of Padraic Colum, the distinguished Irish poet now living and writing in America, is here included owing to the feeling of the editor that his work belongs more accurately in Irish anthologies. He is, however, a writer of indubitable genius. Also, in the case of the work of Stephen Crane, a true poet whose free verse antedated our free-verse period by years, it has been impossible to secure permission from the present holders of the Crane copyright to include selections. Third, this is an anthology in which personal predilection has also played a part; choices have been made not only on the theory that the poems included must be adapted to the interests and emotions of a particular audience, but in well-considered opposition to the stereotyped anthology. A poem's popularity and inclusion in many anthologies has not been allowed to influence the present compiler's personal taste when that taste indicated to him that such a poem was inferior as a work of art to another, less popular, by the poet under consideration. This must account for the omission of certain "household word" poems by Longfellow, the omission of any of the work of such once popular poets as Nathaniel Parker Willis, the inclusion, for example, of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" in preference to the merely technical brilliance of "The Bells." One exception to this general policy may be cited in the inclusion of "Thanatopsis" by William Cullen Bryant, a poem for which the compiler feels no particular reverence. It was, however, the first American poem to be written in the "grand manner" with more than a merely average amount of success, and as such, and because it was also the work of a young man of eighteen, it has been included, though in the compiler's own opinion William Ellery Channing was a far more important poet than William Cullen Bryant. A necessary corollary to this method of selection is that the compiler has also endeavored to remind the younger reader, through prominent inclusion, of a few now-almostforgotten poems which a number of anthologists have persisted in neglecting in favor of less distinctive work. Into this category may be said to fall the inclusions from Channing, the inclusions from Longfellow's "Saga of King Olaf," the Civil War sea-fight poem by Brownell, Edward King's ballad of "Captain Loredan," the more recent poems by Arthur Colton and Arthur Upson, and by the young unknown, Francis E. Falkenbury. In several instances, certain poems by poets not otherwise important have been included because they seemed to be peculiarly adapted to this volume. Throughout, it has been the compiler's belief that the instinct of average youth could be trusted to prove more intelligent in matters of taste than many arbiters of taste have heretofore believed it. A number of inclusions will, of course, be recognized as time-honored. But then it was not the compiler's intention merely to give an exhibition of eccentricity. All the inclusions will, it is his hope, be found to subserve the one purpose originally defined, namely, to present "a selection of a certain portion of the best” as it is particularly adapted to the mind of youth. In general, and finally, the compiler has tried to preserve with all the strictness possible under the conditions, the canons of his own private artistic taste, and he has constantly endeavored to keep before his mind's eye the particular audience for whom his compilation was intended. W. R. B. |