Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;
I only have relinquish'd one delight
To live beneath your more habitual sway ;
I love the brooks which down their channels fret
Even more than when I tripp'd lightly as they ;
The innocent brightness of a new-born day

Is lovely yet ;
The clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober colouring from an eye
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality ;
Another race hath been, and other palms are won.
Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

W. Wordsworth

CCLXXXVIII

MUSIC, when soft voices die,

Vibrates in the memory
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heap'd for the beloved's bed ;
And so thy thoughts, when Thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

P. B. Shelley

NOTES

Summary of Book First T HE Elizabethan Poetry, as it is rather vaguely termed, forms

the substance of this Book, which contains pieces from Wyat under Henry VIII to Shakespeare midway through the reign of James I, and Drummond who carried on the early manner to a still later period. There is here a wide range of style ; from simplicity expressed in a language hardly yet broken in to verse, - through the pastoral fancies and Italian conceits of the strictly Elizabethan time, - --- to the passionate reality of Shakespeare : yet a general uniformity of tone prevails. Few readers can fail to observe the natural sweetness of the verse, the single-hearted straightforwardness of the thoughts : — nor less, the limitation of subject to the many phases of one passion, which then characterized our lyrical poetry, — unless when, as with Drummond and Shakespeare, the “purple light of Love'is tempered by a spirit of sterner reflection.

It should be observed that this and the following Summaries apply in the main to the Collection here presented, in which (besides its restriction to Lyrical Poetry) a strictly representative or historical Anthology has not been aimed at. Great Excellence, in human art as in human character, has from the beginning of things been even more uniform than Mediocrity, by virtue of the closeness of its approach to Nature : -- and so far as the standard of Excellence kept in view has been attained in this volume, a comparative absence of extreme or temporary phases in style, a similarity of tone and manner, will be found throughout :- something neither modern nor ancient, but true in all ages, and like the works of Creation, perfect as on the first day.

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II

Page No.

Rouse Memnon's mother : Awaken the Dawn from the
dark Earth and the clouds where she is resting. Au-
rora in the old mythology is mother of Memnon (the
East), and wife of Tithonus (the appearances of Earth
and Sky during the last hours of Night). She leaves
him every morning in renewed youth, to prepare the
way for Phoebus (the Sun), whilst Tithonus remains in
perpetual old age and grayness.
1. 27 by Peneus' stream : Phoebus loved the Nymph
Daphne, whom he met by the river Peneus in the vale
of Tempe. This legend expressed the attachment of
the Laurel (Daphne) to the Sun, under whose heat the
tree both fades and flourishes.
It has been thought worth while to explain these allu-
sions, because they illustrate the character of the Grecian
Mythology, which arose in the Personification of natural
phenomena, and was totally free from those debasing
and ludicrous ideas with which, through Roman and
later misunderstanding or perversion, it has been asso-

ciated. 3 III. Amphion's lyre : He was said to have built the

walls of Thebes to the sound of his music.
1. 9 Night like a drunkard reels : Compare Romeo and
Juliet, Act II. Scene 3: ‘The gray-eyed morn smiles'
&c. — Il should be added, that three lines, which ap-
peared hopelessly misprinted, have been omitted in this
Poem.
Time's chest: in which he is figuratively supposed to
lay up past treasures. So in Troilus, Act III. Scene 3,
"Time hath a wallet at his back' &c.
A fine example of the highwrought and conventional
Elizabethan Pastoralism, which it would be ludicrous to
criticise on the ground of the unshepherdlike or unreal
character of some images suggested. Stanza 6 was

probably inserted by Izaak Walton. 8 1x This Poem, with xxv and xciv, is taken from Davison's

‘Rhapsody,' first published in 1602. One stanza has been here omitted, in accordance with the principle noticed in the Preface. Similar omissions occur in XLV, LXXXVII, C, CXXVIII, CLXV, CCXXVII, CCXXXV. The more serious abbreviation by which it has been attempted to bring Crashaw's Wishes' and Shelley's

4

IV

12

Page No.

'Euganean Hills' within the limits of lyrical unity, is commended with much diffidence to the judgment of readers acquainted with the original pieces. Presence in line 12 is here conjecturally printed for present. A very few similar corrections of (it is presumed) misprints have been made :-- as thy for my, XXII, 9: men for me, xli, 3 : viol for idol, cclII, 43 : and one for our, 90 : locks for looks, CCLXXI, 5 : domne for doom, cclxxv, 23:- with two or three more less

important. XV This charming little poem, truly “old and plain, and

dallying with the innocence of love' like that spoken of in Twelfth Night, is taken, with v, XVII, XX, XXXIV, and xl, from the most characteristic collection of Elizabeth's reign, 'England's Helicon,' first

published in 1600.
XVI Readers who have visited Italy will be reminded of

more than one picture by this gorgeous Vision of
Beauty, equally sublime and pure in its Paradisiacal
naturalness. Lodge wrote it on a voyage to the
Islands of Terceras and the Canaries'; and he seems
to have caught, in those southern seas, no small por-
tion of the qualities which marked the almost con-
temporary Art of Venice, the glory and the glow
of Veronese, or Titian, or Tintoret, when he most
resembles Titian, and all but surpasses him.
The clear (1. 1) is the crystalline or outermost heaven
of the old cosmography. For resembling (1. 7) other
copies give refining: the correct reading is perhaps
revealing. For a fair there's fairer none : If you
desire a Beauty, there is none more beautiful than

Rosaline. 15 XVIII

that fair thou owest: that beauty thou ownest.
the star Whose worth 's unknown, although his height
be taken: apparently, Whose stellar influence is un-
calculated, although his angular altitude from the
plane of the astrolabe or artificial horizon used by

astrologers has been determined. 21 XXVII keel: skim. 22 XXIX expense: waste. 23 xxx Nativity once in the main of light: when a star has

risen and entered on the full stream of light; -an

19 XXIII