“ Then my old Kentucky Home, good-night!
Weep no more, my lady,
Oh, weep no more to-day!
We will sing one song for the old Kentucky Home,
For the old Kentucky Home, far away.
They hunt no more for the possum and the coon,
On the meadow, the hill, and the shore;
They sing no more by the glimmer of the moon,
On the bench by the old cabin door.
The day goes by like a shadow o'er the heart,
With sorrow, where all was delight;
The time has come when the darkies have to part,—
Then my old Kentucky Home, good-night! ”

“ The verse of a single century produced in a new country should not be expected to equal the poetic wealth of an old and intellectual nation. But if American poetry cannot hope to rival the poetry of the mother country, it may at least be compared with it; and the fact of such a comparative point of view will aid rather than hinder the student of our native poetry in estimating its value.
American verse has suffered at the hands both of its admirers and its enemies. Injudicious praise, no less than supercilious contempt, has reacted unfavorably on the fame of our poets. ”

“ There are gains for all our losses,
There are balms for all our pain;
But when youth, the dream, departs,
It takes something from our hearts,
And it never comes again.
We are stronger, and are better,
Under manhood's sterner reign;
Still, we feel that something sweet
Followed youth, with flying feet,
And will never come again.
Something beautiful is vanished,
And we sigh for it in vain;
We behold it everywhere,
On the earth, and in the air,
But it never comes again.
R.H. Stoddard.
[3] From "The Poems of R.H. Stoddard," copyright, 1880, by Charles Scribner's Sons. ”

“ Ho there! Has no man seen
The king?" The cry ran to and fro;
Beggar and king, they laughed, I ween,
The laugh that free men know.
On the king's gate the moss grew gray;
The king came not. They called him dead;
And made his eldest son one day
Slave in his father's stead.
H.H. Jackson. On a Bust of Dante.
See, from this counterfeit of him
Whom Arno shall remember long,
How stern of lineament, how grim,
The father was of Tuscan song:
There but the burning sense of wrong,
Perpetual care and scorn, abide;
Small friendship for the lordly throng;
Distrust of all the world beside. ”

“ More sacredly of every human heart,
Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam
Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret show,
Did we but pay the love we owe,
And with a child's undoubting wisdom look
On all these living pages of God's book.
J.R. Lowell. The Chambered Nautilus.
This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main,—
The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair. ”

“ E.A. Poe. On the Death of Joseph Rodman Drake.
Green be the turf above thee,
Friend of my better days!
None knew thee but to love thee,
Nor named thee but to praise.
Tears fell when thou wert dying,
From eyes unused to weep,
And long, where thou art lying,
Will tears the cold turf steep.
When hearts, whose truth was proven,
Like thine, are laid in earth,
There should a wreath be woven
To tell the world their worth;
And I, who woke each morrow
To clasp thy hand in mine,
Who shared thy joy and sorrow,
Whose weal and woe were thine ”

“ I have gone over carefully a wide field of verse, not without finding much to admire, but never quite happening upon that final touch of successful achievement where art and inspiration join. I am especially sorry to leave unrepresented a writer—more imaginative, possibly, than any American poet except Poe—whose utter contempt for technique in the ordinary sense places him wholly outside my present purpose. ”

“ Thy blade of war; and, battled-storied, one
Rejoices in the sheath and hides from light
American I am; would wars were done!
Now westward look, my country bids Good-night,—
Peace to the world from ports without a gun! ”

“ From "The Builders and Other Poems," copyright, 1897, by Charles Scribner's Sons.
The Silence of Love.
Oh, inexpressible as sweet,
Love takes my voice away;
I cannot tell thee, when we meet,
What most I long to say.
But hadst thou hearing in thy heart
To know what beats in mine,
Then shouldst thou walk, where'er thou art,
In melodies divine.
So warbling birds lift higher notes
Than to our ears belong;
The music fills their throbbing throats,
But silence steals the song.
G.E. Woodberry. The Secret. ”

“ The word that shall give me rest.
Open the door of thy heart,
And open thy chamber door,
And my kisses shall teach thy lips
The love that shall fade no more
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold! ”

“ I have made it no part of my design to grant to the better known poets a larger number of lyrics than those given later and younger men. I have paid no regard to that purely conventional idea of proportion, that would assign to five or six writers a dozen selections each, and to another set of poets, in proportion to their popular fame, half that number. We can safely leave the final adjustment of all rival claims to Time, the best critic; in the meanwhile having the more modest aim of selecting, irrespective of contemporary judgments, whatever is best suited to our purpose. ”

“ The numerous collections of American verse share, I think, one fault in common: they include too much. Whether this has been a bid for popularity, a concession to Philistia, I cannot say; but the fact remains that all anthologies of American poetry are, so far as I know, more or less uncritical. The aim of the present book is different. In no case has a poem been included because it is widely known. The purpose of this compilation is solely that of preserving, in attractive and permanent form, about one hundred and fifty of the best lyrics of America. ”

“ Nor to the streaming eye
Thou giv'st them back,—nor to the broken heart.
In thy abysses hide
Beauty and excellence unknown; to thee
Earth's wonder and her pride
Are gathered, as the waters to the sea;
Labors of good to man,
Unpublished charity, unbroken faith,
Love, that midst grief began,
And grew with years, and faltered not in death. ”

“ For shame the sun will never show himself,
Who could not with his beams e'er melt me so;
My dripping locks,—they would become an elf,
Who in a beaded coat does gayly go.
H.D. Thoreau. To the Dandelion.
Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way,
Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold,
First pledge of blithesome May,
Which children pluck, and, full of pride, uphold,
High-hearted buccaneers, o'erjoyed that they
An Eldorado in the grass have found,
Which not the rich earth's ample round
May match in wealth, thou art more dear to me
Than all the prouder summer-blooms may be. ”

“ That every reader of the "American Treasury" will find some favorite poem omitted, there can be little doubt. But the effort made in this book towards a careful estimate of our lyrical poetry is at any rate, I feel sure, in a good direction.
There appear in the index of Mr. Stedman's "Poets of America" the names of over three hundred native writers. American verse in the last half century has been extraordinarily prolific. It would seem that the time has come, in the course of our national literature, for proving all things and holding fast that which is good. ”

“ Love, lay thine hand in mine.
Come forth, sweet stars, and comfort heaven's heart;
Glimmer, ye waves, round else unlighted sands.
O night! divorce our sun and sky apart,
Never our lips, our hands.
S. Lanier.
[9] From "Poems of Sidney Lanier," copyright, 1884, 1891, by Mary D. Lanier, published by Charles Scribner's Sons.
"The Woods That Bring the Sunset Near."
The wind from out the west is blowing,
The homeward-wandering cows are lowing,
Dark grow the pine-woods, dark and drear,—
The woods that bring the sunset near. ”

“ I cried, "thy God hath lent thee—by these angels He hath sent thee
Respite—respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!
Quaff, oh, quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
"Prophet!" ”

“ With the exception of Pinkney and Hoffman, whose "Sparkling and Bright," if technically defective, is a true song, we must wait for our lyric poet till we reach Edgar Allan Poe, the greatest—one inclines to say the only—master of musical quality in verse whom America has produced.
The Wild Honeysuckle.—Philip Freneau, born in 1752, was a soldier in the American Revolution. Though never rising quite into the highest class of poets, he is our first genuine singer. "The Indian Burying-ground" and "To a Honey-bee" are only less successful than the graceful lines quoted. ”

“ Nor thoughts nor words are free,
The grief is fixed too deeply
That mourns a man like thee.
F.G. Halleck. The Valley of Unrest.
Once it smiled a silent dell
Where the people did not dwell;
They had gone unto the wars,
Trusting to the mild-eyed stars,
Nightly, from their azure towers,
To keep watch above the flowers,
In the midst of which all day
The red sunlight lazily lay.
Now each visitor shall confess
The sad valley's restlessness.
Nothing there is motionless,
Nothing save the airs that brood
Over the magic solitude. ”

“ Sesostris.—Of this poem Mr. Stoddard has the high praise that in imaginative quality it is unequalled in nineteenth century literature, unless by Leigh Hunt's sonnet on the Nile. The same critic does not scruple to declare of Mr. Mifflin that he has a "glorious imagination," and to prophesy for him a distinguished future. Seldom indeed has a first book of verse won such instant and universal appreciation as Mr. Mifflin's volume of sonnets, just issued as the "American Treasury" goes to press. ”

“ For this world's peace to pray;
For, as love's wild prayer dissolved in air,
Her woman's heart gave way!
But the sin forgiven by Christ in heaven
By man is cursed alway.
N.P. Willis. The Haunted Palace.
In the greenest of our valleys
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace—
Radiant palace—reared its head. ”

“ Stedman is inclined to think "On a Bust of Dante" the finest of American lyrics (see "The Nature of Poetry," 254) .
The Port of Skips.—In a recent review of American Literature in the London Athæneum occurs this sentence: "In point of power, workmanship, and feeling, among all poems written by Americans, we are inclined to give first place to the 'Port of Ships,' of Joaquin Miller."
Evening Song.—No poem of Lanier is more free from his characteristic faults. One regrets that so much of his work, highly imaginative as it is, is marred by over-elaboration and artificiality. ”

“ A few of them, to be sure, are remembered by an occasional lyric,—Halleck by "Marco Bozzaris," a spirited ode in the manner of Campbell; Pierpont by his ringing lines, "Warren's Address to the American Soldiers;" Drake by "The American Flag," conventional but not commonplace, and marked by one very imaginative line; and Allston by two rather excellent lyrics, "Rosalie" and "America to Great Britain." The first poet to accomplish work of high sustained excellence was Bryant. His poetry, though never impassioned, is uniformly elegant. It is often as chaste as Landor at his best. ”

“ Thalatta.—Regarding this poem, Thomas Wentworth Higginson says, in "The New World and the New Book:" "Who knows but that, when all else of American literature has vanished in forgetfulness, some single little masterpiece like this may remain to show the high-water mark, not merely of a single poet, but of a nation and a generation?" The author of "Thalatta" was a Dartmouth graduate, a teacher, and a disciple of Emerson.
The Fall of the Leaf.—Thoreau's prose is known universally; his verse has not won as yet the recognition it deserves. ”

“ Such things as Pinkney's "Health" and Holmes's "Old Ironsides" are the exception. The poems are composed cleverly, but they do not quite sing themselves to their own music. The best American verse, while not insincere, is seldom wholly spontaneous. This is not saying that much spontaneous verse has not been written in this country; much has been, but the singer's voice has too often been uncultivated, and the product inartistic.
The names of many popular poets are entirely omitted. ”

“ Tapping the meadow's hidden cells;
Whole generations of green things,
Descended from long lines of springs,
I see make room for thee to bide
A quiet comrade by their side;
I see the creeping peoples go
Mysterious journeys to and fro,
Treading to right and left of thee,
Doing thee homage wonderingly. ”