Excerpt from The Moxford Book of English Verse, 1340-1913 For this collection I have tried to range over the whole field of British verse from the beginning, or from the four teenth century to the opening years of the twentieth, and to choose the poems that have most references to contemporary events and modern emotions. It is remarkable how poets even of the early centuries wrote of things and persons who are alive to-day. There is more of the prophetic spirit in poetry than even the Occultists imagine. Having set my heart on choosing what I wished to choose, I resolved not to be dissuaded by common objections against collections of verse - that they repeat one another until the proverb the best is not good enough for me (i am sorry I have forgotten the original Sanskrit) loses all appli cation - or perturbed if my judgment often disagrees with that of the worst critics. The best is often the worst, and the worst is often the best, and those between are still between and occupy much the same attitude as did the third portion of the ten thousand troops led by the grand old Duke of York. That is a fact, though a hundred judgesverses included are merely parodies - or rather paraphrases as line by line they bear a distinct resemblance to poems well known in the language. But surely the critic will not be deceived by anything so evident. The Evident is what is most to be mistrusted. Any post-impressionist will tell you this, and if intellects on that level are so wise, surely I may depend on the ordinary sane man to be even wiser. 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.