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ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The author and his publisher are indebted to the following firms and individuals for permission to use the poems included in this volume:

D. Appleton & Co., The Houghton Mifflin Co., Doubleday, Page & Co., The Century Co., Messrs. Harper & Bros., The Harr Wagner Publishing Co., Charles Scribner's Sons, The Neale Publishing Co., The Macmillan Co., George H. Doran Co., The Frederick A. Stokes Co., G. P. Putnam's Sons, Henry Holt & Co., Harcourt, Brace & Co., Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., B. W. Huebsch, Small, Maynard & Co., Boni & Liveright, Inc., Little, Brown & Co., Dodd, Mead & Co., Brentano's, Mitchell Kennerley, Thos. B. Mosher, A. M. Robertson, Thomas Seltzer, Inc., The Bobbs-Merrill Co., Yale University Press, Sherman, French & Co., Elkin Mathews (England), Dunster House Book Shop, The Brick Row Book Shop. Mr. Joseph Ignatius Constantine Clarke, Mr. Houston Mifflin (executor of the Lloyd Mifflin Estate), Mr. Charles Erskine Scott Wood, Mr. Edwin Markham, Miss Edith Matilda Thomas, Mr. George Edward Woodberry, Miss Lizette Woodworth Reese, Mr. Clarence Urmy, Mr. Thomas Walsh, Mr. William Lindsey, Miss Helen Gray Cone, Mr. Hamlin Garland, Mr. Clinton Scollard, Mr. Thomas Fleming Day, Mr. Bliss Carman, Mr. Robert W. Chambers, Mr. Edwin Arlington Robinson, Mr. Arthur Colton, Mr. Edwin Ford Piper, Mr. Arthur Guiterman, Miss Mildred Howells (for the poems by her father, William Dean Howells), Miss Amy Lowell, Mr. Henry Herbert Knibbs, Mrs. Edgar Speyer, Mr. Ridgely Torrence, Miss Mildred McNeal-Sweeney, Miss Grace Fallow Norton, Mr. Hermann Hagedorn, Mr. Arthur Davison Ficke, Mrs. Florence Wilkinson Evans, Mr. Cale Young Rice, Mr. George Sterling, Miss Willa Sibert Cather, Miss Ina Firkins (for the poem by her brother, Chester Firkins), Mr. Robert Frost, Miss Sarah N. Cleghorn, Mr. William Ellery Leonard, Mr. Don Marquis, Mr. Claude F. Bragdon (for three poems by Adelaide Crapsey), Mrs. Roscoe P. Conkling, Mr.

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Carl Sandburg, Mr. Vachel Lindsay, Mr. John G. Neihardt, Mr. Witter Bynner, Mr. John Hall Wheelock, Mrs. Avrahm Yarmolinsky, Miss Anna Hempstead Branch, Mrs. Fannie Stearns Gifford, Mr. James Oppenheim, Mr. Francis Carlin, Mr. Mahlon Leonard Fisher, Mrs. Ernst Filsinger, Mr. Louis Untermeyer, Mr. Conrad Aiken, Mr. John Gould Fletcher, Mrs. Joyce Kilmer, Miss Margaret Widdemer, Mrs. Louis Untermeyer, Mr. Orrick Johns, Mr. Willard Wattles, Mr. Edwin Curran, Miss Theresa Helburn, Mr. Clement Wood, Mr. William Carlos Williams, Miss Lola Ridge, Mrs. William Rose Benét, Mr. Christopher Morley, Mr. John Crowe Ransom, Mr. Maxwell Bodenheim, Mr. Herbert S. Gorman, Mrs. Harold H. Shearer, Miss Laura Benét, Mr. Stephen Vincent Benét, Mr. Brian Hooker, Mr. Harry Kemp, Miss Edna St. Vincent Millay, Mr. John V. A. Weaver, and Mr. Hervey Allen-for copyright vested in them or for special assistance; also to the following magazines: Scribner's Magazine, for "Eye-Witness," by Ridgely Torrence; McClure's Magazine for "The Simple Field that I shall Buy," by Mildred McNeal-Sweeney, and "South Street," by Francis E. Falkenbury; Scribner's Magazine for "Immortals in Exile," by Arthur Davison Ficke; Century Magazine for "Love is a Terrible Thing," by Grace Fallow Norton, and "Youth," by Theresa Helburn; The Nation for "The Quaker Meeting House," by William Ellery Leonard; and The Measure for "Gargantua," by Hervey Allen.

PREFACE

The primary purpose of this book is to furnish to the American youth of this country, not an entirely comprehensive series of selections from the work of all the American poets of any distinction who have ever written, but, on the other hand, a compendious selection of a certain portion of the best work that has been done in the field of American poetry. The compiler must at once disclaim comprehensiveness for the following reasons.

First, the intention of the editor of the book has been, in so far as proved possible, to select its contents with distinct reference to the understandings of average young people in their late teens and early twenties. Their predilections and chief interests have received consideration. Hence, among the voluminous poetry and verse being written by modern poets, the effort has been to avoid work too subtle, too highly intellectualized, or too entirely experimental. The endeavor has been to include only poems of " comparatively simple and direct appeal. In the case of a few poets, old and new, this condition has rendered absolute consistency peculiarly difficult. Emerson's "Uriel" has been included and all of T. S. Eliot's poetry has been omitted. There is no question but that the full meaning of “Uriel” is as far in advance of the average young person's understanding as is the full allusive and ironic force of T. S. Eliot's best poetry, nor is there any question that Mr. Eliot is one of the foremost American poets now living. The attitude that has been taken is simply this. It was a funda

mental necessity of this particular compilation that work of Emerson's should be included, to preserve the historic sequence of the best American poetry, and, in the opinion of the compiler, a reading of any of Emerson's poetry without a reading of "Uriel," whether or not "Uriel" could be completely comprehended, would be like a knowledge of "Hamlet" with Hamlet left out. This is also true of Emerson's "Brahma," which has likewise been included. No such historical necessity applies as yet to the work of Mr. Eliot, inasmuch as that work is distinctly contemporaneous. He and a few other poets of the present, the bulk of whose work is in presenting the emotions of highly intellectual and subtle temperaments, will eventually take their places in academic categories-not that this has anything whatever to do with the merits of their poetry—but in this particular compilation it was necessary to bear such categories in mind. At present Eliot, H. D. (the wife of Richard Aldington, the English poet), Ezra Pound, and a few others, remain in their best work poets for distinctly mature audiences. From other modern poets to some of whose work the same characterization might apply, selections have been made that illustrate other virtues of theirs-those of simplicity and directness and are thought to appeal in some special wise to the apprehension of youth. Modern American poetry is at the present moment particularly full of intellectual and temperamental puzzles, which we have not thought germane to this particular volume.

Second, the compiler must particularly regret the exclusion of the work of Edgar Lee Masters, not for any of the above reasons but because such is Mr. Masters' express wish and recent definite general policy-"for reasons," as he writes, "which are many and good from my stand

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