"Return, return, gay planet of mine east"!
The poems in which these are cannot make part of the volume, but the citation of the fragments is a relieving act of love.
Attheverybeginning,Skelton'ssongto"MistressMargeryWentworth" had almost taken a place; but its charm is hardly fine enough.
If it is necessary to answer the inevitable question in regard to Byron, let me say that in another Anthology, a secondary Anthology, the one in which Gray's Elegy would have an honourable place, some more of Byron's lyrics would certainly be found; and except this there is no apology.If the last stanza of the "Dying Gladiator" passage, or the last stanza on the cascade rainbow at Terni,"Love watching madness with unalterable mien,"had been separate poems instead of parts of Childe Harold, they would have been amongst the poems that are here collected in no spirit of arrogance, or of caprice, of diffidence or doubt.
The volume closes some time before the middle of the century and the death of Wordsworth.
A.M.
[As there would be considerable overlap between the poems in this book and those already released by Project Gutenberg the text of the poems is not included in this eText.The poems that Alice selected are shown below and are followed by her comments on them.- -DP]
