Excerpt from The Beloved Stranger: Two Books of Song a Divertisement for the Unknown Lover Not in explanation of these Songs to the Be loved Stranger is this brief introduction written, for poetry that does not explain itself may be something else, but it is not poetry. If there be those who do not get from these lyrics something of the poet's heart and something of their own hearts and thoughts it is because those persons fail in the one thing which the reader of verse must bring to the reading in order to get any thing out of it - imagination. For poetry is written to the poet that is in man, and to none other. I doubt though that these poems - or this poem - will fail of appeal to anyone compe tent to comprehend a presentation of beauty and of passion. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.