the civic virtues. A chartered libertine in his beliefs, the soul of goodness shone through his life and his work, than which there is none more imaginative in English Verse. More purely poetical than either was Keats, who, without learning, revived the spirit of the Greek pastoral in Endymion, and the spirit of the Greek tragedy in Hyperion, and summoned back as with the wand of an enchanter the light and loveliness of the Middle Ages in The Eve of St. Agnes. His masters were Chaucer, Spenser, and the Shakespeare of the Sonnets, and their pupil was worthy of them. One's first thought, when he remembers that he died in his twenty-seventh year, is, that he died young; but when one remembers what his life was, with what scorn his poetry was received, and how he was tortured by a hopeless passion, one cannot but change his mind, and say, with old Bosola in the Duchess of Malfy, "I think not so; his infelicity Seemed to have years too many." Of the later nineteenth century poets, successors of Keats, Shelley, and Byron, born in their lifetime, but not singing until the grave had closed over them,-the perfect poet who has restored to us the gracious Arthur from his long slumber in the island valley of Avilion; the subtle dramatist who has poured his own heart's blood into Sebald and Ottima, Colombe and Valence, and a score of other live men and women; the tender and pensive singer, who has created an Earthly Paradise for the immortal stories that he loves so well, and that we love, too; the fiery, impassioned improvisator, dramatist at once and lyrist, who has plucked out the heart of Mary Stuart's secret, and snatched the light and sound of the sea; of these, and others, all that a contemporary should say,—and he cannot say less,-was said by Keats in the first line of the second sonnet that he addressed to Haydon : "Great spirits now on earth are sojourning.” THE CENTURY, NEW YORK, September 20, 1883. R. H. STODDARD. *** The Editors and Publishers of ENGLISH VERSE cordially acknowledge the kindness which has allowed them to print in it many poems, which could be so included only by authority of the owners of the American copyrights. The permission has been willingly granted in every case; and it is through this kind co-operation that it has been possible to make thoroughly comprehensive a Collection which must otherwise have been unduly limited in the field of American poetry. Besides their indebtedness to the living American authors whose names appear in these volumes, they desire to express their thanks to MESSRS. HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. for their consent to the use of many poems from the long list of poets of whose works they are the publishers; to MESSRS. D. APPLETON & Co. for the use of poems by Bryant; to MESSRS. ROBERTS BROTHERS and JAMES R. Osgood & Co.; to MESSRS. J. B. LIPPINCOTT & Co.; and to MESSRS A. C. ARMSTRONG & SON. |