Introduction I would not ask, then, as some critics do, that a lyric should be thoughtless and careless, void of ideas, misty in utterance, and free from the restraining touch of art. I would ask only that it should have at its heart a vital and controlling emotion expressed in a song-like way; and I would measure its rank as a lyric, by the truth and beauty, the tenderness or the power, of the feeling, and by the purity of the art, (in its most perfect result hiding the traces of its own labour,) by which the poem sings us into harmony with the poet's mood. It is thus that the pure lyrics in this volume have been chosen from the rich stores of English verse. They range in tone from the simplest note of joy at the coming of the spring, to the deepest note of confidence and immortal hope at the passing of human life into the unknown. The "Songs of Nature" are lyrical expressions of man's feeling towards the changing seasons, the living creatures who inhabit the earth with him, the light and the darkness, the sea and the stars. Some of the poems in this group border closely upon the region of Descriptive and Reflective Verse; and it would be possible, of course, to place them there; just as some of the poems which are to be included in that volume might be transferred to this. In any arrangement or classification of poetry there is always room for variation, according to the taste or the point of view of the person who is making it. To me the nature-songs which are collected here seem to belong together because they simply take it for granted that the tie which binds our hearts to nature is real; and they express the various feelings which spring out of that tie, not philosophically, but in the form of a personal and heartfelt melody. This is as true of Wordsworth's deeper lyric To the Cuckoo, as it is of the merry little cuckoo-song from the thirteenth century with which the volume begins. The "Love-Songs," which form the largest group in the book, have the same personal quality. They do not reason about love: they express it. They give a musical voice to its hopes and its fears, its joy and its pain, its longing, its triumph, and its anguish. 66 The Songs of Patriotism" are all too few in number. This is partly because the patriotic feeling has found a fuller expression in ballads narrating the famous deeds of heroism, and in odes dealing on a broader scale with the complex sentiments which are united in love of country. Perhaps, also the comparative rarity of patriotic lyrics of true poetic value is due, in part, to something in this emotion which naturally tends to express itself in eloquence rather than in the imaginative form proper to poetry. One very beautiful poem in this group needs a word of explanation. The "Dark Rosaleen" is the poetic name for Ireland. The " Songs of Life's Pilgrimage" are a group of lyrics in many keys, rising out of human experience on the way through the world. The Introduction reader who studies the arrangement thoughtfully will see that it passes from one subject to another by a gradation which is simple and natural: first, the poet's ideal of life; then some of the joys of living; then, the home and the fireside, with songs of children; then, good fellowship and merry company; then, the memories of “Auld Lang Syne"; then, sadness and parting, toil, disappointment and sorrow; and last of all the comforting faith and the uplifting hope. Several of these last poems might, perhaps, have been classed with the hymns; but again I can only say that I have put them into this volume because they seemed to me more clearly lyrical, more emotional and simple; and because without some expression of just these human feelings the volume would be incomplete as an utterance of the inner life of man in song. The Odes and Sonnets have been reserved for a separate volume, which must also be regarded as belonging to lyrical verse. But in the ode, the lyric is enlarged and expanded, and the progressive treatment of a single subject lends both variety to the emotions and a peculiar loftiness to the expression. In the sonnet, the strict limitations of the form almost always result in bringing in a larger element of thought and reflection, and there is usually a contrast, or at least a change, of feeling between the octave and the sestet. Nowhere have I regretted more than in these two volumes, the restriction which precludes the |