to life. All the leniency that can be asked is the reflection that to love the rose need not carry with it scorn of the lily; while the flowers of the Victorian domain are so multitudinous and so nobly large in the blossom, like those sixty-leaved roses which Herodotus, two thousand and more years since, heard of in the king's garden below Mount Bermion, — that a limited, an imperfect garland only can be collected within the garth allowed me.

It is my pleasant duty here to give thanks once for all to the copyright proprietors or publishers who have kindly permitted me to transfer their treasures, sometimes almost too graspingly, to the enrichment of this Anthology. Should any claims have been overlooked by inadvertence I ask forgiveness. Special acknowledgments will be found in the notes.

I deeply regret, and every reader will regret with me, that I am not able to adorn my pages with examples of Mr. A. C. Swinburne's brilliant lyrical gift.

After the lapse of six-and-thirty years to complete a book brings with it an inevitable sadness: the longing for the irrevocable; the sigh for the old familiar faces; - of his, perhaps, here above all, who privileged me to dedicate to his honoured name that first volume to which he gave such invaluable aid it is a feeling such as that to which Goethe, in one of his most beautiful lyrics, gave expression,

Sie hören nicht die folgenden Gesänge, Die Seelen, denen ich die ersten sang:Yet I may hope perhaps for new friends to replace the lost. Kind readers! - if I have the fortune to find such may this little selection, like the former, with whatever deficiencies, be the draught tempting you to approach, in their free fullness, the inexhaustible and invigorating fountains, old and new, of England's Helicon.

February 1897

F. T. P.

xii

The Golden Treasury

Second Series

I

ODE

We are the music makers,

And we are the dreamers of dreams, Wandering by lone sea-breakers,

And sitting by desolate streams ;-
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world's great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory :
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure
Can trample a kingdom down.

We, in the ages lying

In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,

And Babel itself in our mirth;
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.

A. O'Shaughnessy

II

CRADLE SONG

What does little birdie say
In her nest at peep of day?
Let me fly, says little birdie,
Mother, let me fly away.
Birdie, rest a little longer,
Till the little wings are stronger.
So she rests a little longer,
Then she flies away.

What does little baby say,
In her bed at peep of day?
Baby says, like little birdie,
Let me rise and fly away.
Baby, sleep a little longer,
Till the little limbs are stronger.
If she sleeps a little longer,

Baby too shall fly away.

A. Lord Tennyson

III

LETTY'S GLOBE

When Letty had scarce pass'd her third glad year,
And her young, artless words began to flow,
One day we gave the child a colour'd sphere
Of the wide earth, that she might mark and know,

By tint and outline, all its sea and land.
She patted all the world; old empires peep'd
Between her baby fingers; her soft hand
Was welcome at all frontiers. How she leap'd,
And laugh'd, and prattled in her world-wide bliss ;
But when we turn'd her sweet unlearned eye
On our own isle, she raised a joyous cry,
'Oh! yes, I see it, Letty's home is there!'
And, while she hid all England with a kiss,
Bright over Europe fell her golden hair.

C. Tennyson-Turner

IV

THE SURPRISE

As there I left the road in May,
And took my way along a ground,
I found a glade with girls at play,
By leafy boughs close-hemm'd around,
And there, with stores of harmless joys,
They plied their tongues, in merry noise;
Though little did they seem to fear

So queer a stranger might be near;

Teeh-hee! Look here! Hah! ha! Look there!

And oh so playsome, oh! so fair.

And one would dance as one would spring,

Or bob or bow with leering smiles,

And one would swing, or sit and sing,

Or sew a stitch or two at whiles,

And one skipp'd on with downcast face,
All heedless, to my very place,

And there, in fright, with one foot out,
Made one dead step and turn'd about.
Heeh, hee, oh! oh! ooh! oo!-Look there!
And oh so playsome, oh! so fair.

Away they scamper'd all, full speed,
By boughs that swung along their track,
As rabbits out of wood at feed,
At sight of men all scamper back.

And one pull'd on behind her heel,
A thread of cotton, off her reel,
And oh! to follow that white clue,
I felt I fain could scamper too.

Teeh, hee, run here. Eeh! ee! Look there.
And oh! so playsome, oh! so fair.

W. Barnes

V

ISEULT'S CHILDREN

-They sleep in shelter'd rest,
Like helpless birds in the warm nest,
On the castle's southern side;
Where feebly comes the mournful roar
Of buffeting wind and surging tide
Through many a room and corridor.
-Full on their window the moon's ray
Makes their chamber as bright as day.
It shines upon the blank white walls,
And on the snowy pillow falls,
And on two angel-heads doth play
Turn'd to each other-the eyes closed,
The lashes on the cheeks reposed.
Round each sweet brow the
cap close-set
Hardly lets peep the golden hair;
Through the soft-open'd lips the air
Scarcely moves the coverlet.

One little wandering arm is thrown
At random on the counterpane,
And often the fingers close in haste
As if their baby-owner chased
The butterflies again.

This stir they have, and this alone;
But else they are so still!

-Ah, tired madcaps! you lie still;
But were you at the window now,
To look forth on the fairy sight
Of your illumined haunts by night,