The Worlds Best Poetry, Volume 10 | Page 7

may assume any guise and take any shape, at one time
towering like an Alp in the darkness and at another sunning itself in the
bell of a tulip or the cup of a lily; and until one shall have learned to
recognize it in all its various developments he has no right to echo back
the benison of Wordsworth:
"'Blessings be on them and eternal praise, The poets, who on earth have
made us heirs Of truth and pure delight in heavenly lays.'"
* * * * *
By no means, then, to attempt a new definition where so many more
competent have failed, we may nevertheless gather some points of
certainty from the opinions cited above.
Poetry concerns itself with the ideal and the emotional, in nature, life,
and thought. Its language must be choice, for aptness of expression and
for melodious sound. Its form will embody the recurrence of rhythmic

measures, which, however elaborated and varied in later times,
originated in the dim past, when singing and dancing moved hand in
hand for the vivid utterance of feeling--in mirthful joy and in woe, love
and hate, worshipful devotion and mortal defiance, the fierceness of
battle and the serenity of peace. While through all and over all must
breathe the informing spirit of Beauty--whether of the delicate or the
sublime, whether of sweetness or of power--harmonizing both the
interior essence and its outward expression.
In the ejaculations of delight, fear, or wonder of primitive man at the
phenomena of nature--in his imaginative efforts to explain the mystery
of power behind light, darkness, the seasons, storm, calm--lie the
beginnings of poetry; and religion grows from the same seed--the
desire of the finite to lay hold on the Infinite. Every man is a potential
poet, just so far as he responds to these yearnings after some expression
of the ideal and the ineffable.
Poetry, indeed, finds its inspiration in all things, from the humblest
creation to the Creator himself,--nothing too low or too high for its
interest. In turn, it has inspired humanity's finest deeds; and so long as
humanity's aims and joys and woes persist, will mankind seek uplift
and delight in its charm.
[Signature: JR Howard]

PREFACE
The Poets, by the very necessity of their vocation, are the closest
students of language in any literature. They are the most exacting in
their demands upon the resources of words, and the most careful of
discriminations in their use. "Easy writing's curst hard reading," said an
English wit; but for the poet there is no such thing as easy writing. He
must "wreak thought upon expression." The veteran Bryant wrote:
"Thou who wouldst wear the name Of Poet midst thy brethren of
mankind, And clothe in words of flame Thoughts that shall live within
the general mind, Deem not the framing of a deathless lay The pastime
of a drowsy summer day. But gather all thy powers," etc.
The prose-writer should, and the great one does, carefully weigh, select,
and place his words; but the Poet must,--if he is to make any least claim
to the title. Therefore poetical quotations are, as a rule, more skillfully
apt to the purpose of expressing shades of thought than are the more

natural and therefore usually less careful phrases of prose, even when
conveying "thoughts that shall live within the general mind."
A gathering of poetical quotations is valuable in two ways. It may
afford the most vivid and significant representation of a thought or
feeling for some specific occasion, or it will open to the reader an
alluring field for wandering at will--or even aimlessly, yet with
ever-fresh interest. In case one seeks some particular phrase, some
familiar quotation which is vaguely remembered but desired for more
accurate use, it may easily be that the phrase sought is not among the
assemblage of notable fragments in this volume, but in its own place,
embodied in the poem where it had its origin, in some of the other
volumes of this work. In this volume, however, will be found some
2,700 memorable passages from poems not included in the others. They
are alphabetically arranged under more than 300 appropriate titles, for
general topics; and the "Index of Topics" will show cross-references to
other and kindred themes, so that if desired a subject may be pursued
into thoughts of related interest.
It is hoped that this gathering up of admirable fragments that should not
be lost to familiar use, even though their original sources could find no
proper place in the plan of the work at large, will prove to be helpfully
suggestive, whether to the seeker for specific thoughts and expressions
or to the general appreciative reader.
THE EDITORS.
INDEX OF TOPICS.
WITH CROSS-REFERENCES.
VOL. X

INDEX OF TOPICS.
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