CHOICE POEMS AND LYRICS

FOR STUDY AND DELIGHT,

EDITED, WITH NOTES AND A PREFACE,

BY

J. T. ASHBY.

CHIEFLY DESIGNED FOR USE IN COLLEGES AND SCHOOLS.

LONDON:

NOV 1879
SODLFIAN

RELFE, BROTHERS,

6, CharterhouSE BUILDINGS, Aldersgate, E.C.

...

April 6th, 1879. I am glad to hear that your boys and girls take so much interest in poetry. That is a good sign, for poetry is the flower and perfume of thought, and a perpetual delight, clothing the commonplace of life 'with golden exhalations of the dawn.'

H. W. Longfellow. (see page 14.)

TRUTH cut on high in tablets of hewn stone,
Or on great columns gorgeously adorn'd,
Perchance were left alone,

Pass'd by and scorn'd;

But Truth enchased upon a jewel rare,
A man might keep, and next his bosom wear.

So, many an hour, I sit and carve my gems,-
Ten spoil'd, for one in purer beauty set:

Not for king's diadems,

Some amulet

That may be worn o'er hearts that toil and plod,—
Though but one pearl that bears the name of God.

Edward Rowland Sill.

(An American poet: born, 1843.

POETRY has been to me 'its own exceeding great reward ;' it has soothed my afflictions; it has multiplied and refined my enjoyments; it has endeared solitude; and it has given me the habit of wishing to discover the good and the beautiful in all that meets and surrounds me.

S. T. Coleridge. (See page 48.)