The Hundred Best Poems (lyrical) in the English language - second series

by Adam Luke Gowans

THE
HUNDRED
BEST
POEMS.

SECOND SERIES.

THE HUNDRED BEST POEMS

(LYRICAL)

IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

SECOND SERIES.

THE

HUNDRED BEST POEMS

(LYRICAL)

IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

SECOND SERIES

Selected by
ADAM L. GOWANS, M.A.

Glasgow: GOWANS & GRAY, LTD.

London: R. BRIMLEY JOHNSON

1904

To
John G. Stewart

PREFATORY NOTE.

I have been deeply gratified by the large circulation which the first series of 'Hundred Best Poems (Lyrical)' has already attained in less than twelve months from its publication, and am confident, from the many letters of thanks and appreciation which have reached me, that the present series is already assured of a warm welcome.

This second collection, while not containing such supremely great lyrics of the language as does the first, draws its riches, nevertheless, from a treasure-house which is still very far from being exhausted, and will, I believe, prove as interesting to lovers of the best poetry as the other; giving prominence, as it does, to many splendid poems, which, to some extent because of the operation of the law of copyright, are not yet as universally familiar as they will, I believe, in time become. In this volume, as in its predecessor, I have not included poems by living authors. With regard to texts, titles, etc. I have gone on the same principles as before.

I have again to acknowledge with deep gratitude the kindness of many publishers and editors. Messrs Macmillan & Co., Ltd., in particular, have allowed me to reprint Matthew Arnold's 'The Last Word' and Christina Rossetti's 'A Royal Princess,' while I am indebted to Messrs. Chatto & Windus for permission to include a famous stanza from Stevenson's 'Songs of Travel,' and to Messrs. Ellis & Elvey for the same privilege in respect to D. G. Rossetti's 'Sudden Light.' Everyone who knows these four poems, or makes his first acquaintance with them now, will realize their great importance to the volume. I must also thank the following gentlemen who have allowed me to use copyright texts of non-copyright poems from editions published by then:—Messrs. Chatto & Windus (Sidney), Mr. Buxton Forman (Keats and Shelley), Mr Henry Frowde (Wordsworth), Messrs. T. C. & E. C. Jack (Burns), Messrs. Macmillan & Co., Ltd. (Arnold, Christina Rossetti, Shakespeare, and Tennyson), Mr. John Murray (Byron), Messrs Smith, Elder & Co. (Browning), Messrs. Ward, Lock & Co., Ltd. (Coleridge).

A.L.G.

CONTENTS.

			PAGE
1.	Arnold (1822–1888),	Consolation,	1
2.	""	The Last Word,	4
3.	""	The Buried Life,	4
4.	""	The Scholar-Gipsy,	8
5.	Beaumont (1584–1616),	On the Tombs in Westminster,	17
6.	Beaumont (1584–1616) and Fletcher (1579–1625),	Lay a garland on my hearse,	18
7.	Browning, Mrs. (1806–1861),	A Musical Instrument,	19
8.	Browning (1812–1889),	Heap cassia, sandal-buds, and stripes,	20
9.	""	Evelyn Hope,	21
10.	""	Home Thoughts, from Abroad,	23
11.	""	One Way of Love,	24
12.	""	In a Year,	25
13.	Burns (1759–1796),	O, Wert Thou in the Cauld Blast,	28
14.	""	How Lang and Dreary is the Night,	29
15.	""	My Heart's in the Highlands,	30
16.	""	Thou Lingering Star,	31
17.	""	The Blue-Eyed Lassie,	31
18.	""	Bonnie Wee Thing,	33
19.	""	Sweet Afton,	34
20.	""	Out over the Forth,	35
21.	Byron (1788–1824),	And Thou art Dead, as Young and Fair,	36
22.	""	Bright be the place of thy soul,	38
23.	Campbell (1777–1844),	The Soldier's Dream,	39
24.	""	A Thought Suggested by the New Year,	40
25.	Carew (c.1589–1639),	Disdain Returned,	41
26.	""	Ask me no more where Jove bestows,	42
27.	Coleridge (1772–1834),	Kubla Khan,	43
28.	""	The Pains of Sleep,	46
29.	Cowley (1618–1667),	The Wish,	48
30.	Cowper (1731–1800),	On the Loss of the Royal George,	50
31.	Drayton (1563–1631),	Since there's no help,	51
32.	Dryden (1631–1700),	Alexander's Feast,	52
33.	Goldsmith (1728–1774),	Stanzas on Woman,	58
34.	Herrick (1591–1674),	To Dianeme,	59
35.	""	To Blossoms,	59
36.	Jonson (1573–1637),	Queen and Huntress, chaste and fair,	60
37.	""	Still to be neat, still to be drest,	61
38.	Keats (1795–1821),	Ode to Psyche,	61
39.	""	Fragment of an Ode to Maia,	63
40.	""	Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art,	64
41.	Landor (1775–1864),	Epitaph,	65
42.	Lovelace (1618–1658),	To Althea, from Prison,	65
43.	Marlowe (1564–1593),	The Passionate Shepherd to his Love,	66
44.	Milton (1608–1674),	On the late Massacre in Piemont,	67
45.	Moore (1779–1852),	O! breathe not his name,	68
46.	""	Rich and rare were the gems she wore,	68
47.	Rossetti, Miss (1830–1894),	A Royal Princess,	70
48.	""	When I am dead, my dearest,	77
49.	""	Remember,	77
50.	Rosetti (1828–1882),	Sudden Light,	78
51.	Scott (1771–1832),	Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'ver,	79
52.	""	Jock of Hazeldean,	80
53.	""	Sound, sound the clarion,	81
54.	""	And you shall deal the funeral dole,	81
55.	""	The tears I shed must ever fall,	82
56.	Shakespeare (1564-1616),	Where the bee sucks, there suck I,	83
57.	""	Blow, blow, thou winter wind,	83
58.	""	O, mistress mine, where are you roaming,	84
59.	""	If thou survive my well-contented day,	84
60.	Shelley (1792-1822),	Ozymandias,	85
61.	""	Life of Life! thy lips enkindle,	85
62.	""	A widow bird sate mourning for her love,	86
63.	""	Love's Philosophy,	87
64.	""	Hymn of Pan,	87
65.	""	Song of Proserpine,	89
66.	""	To the Moon,	89
67.	""	Time,	90
68.	""	To ——,	90
69.	""	Rarely, rarely, comest thou,	90
70.	""	A Lament,	92
71.	""	To Jane—The Invitation,	93
72.	Sidney (1554-1586),	The Moon,	95
73.	Stevenson (1850-1894),	I have trod the upward and the downward slope,	96
74.	Tennyson (1809-1892),	Choric Song, from "The Lotus Eaters",	96
75.	""	A Dream of Fair Women,	102
76.	""	Sir Galahad,	113
77.	""	Move eastward, happy earth, and leave,	115
78.	""	Come not, when I am dead,	116
79.	""	The Poet's Song,	116
80.	""	The splendour falls on castle walls,	117
81.	""	O Swallow, Swallow,	118
82.	""	Thy voice is heard thro' rolling drums,	119
83.	""	Home they brought her warrior dead,	119
84.	""	Ask me no more,	120
85.	""	Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington,	121
86.	Waller (1606-1687),	On His Divine Poems,	130
87.	Webster (15??-1630?),	Call for the robin-red-breast,	131
88.	Wordsworth (1770-1850),	My heart leaps up when I behold,	131
89.	""	To the Cuckoo,	131
90.	""	Three years she grew in sun and shower,	133
91.	""	A slumber did my spirit seal,	134
92.	""	I wandered lonely as a cloud,	134
93.	""	Nuns fret not,	135
94.	""	It is a beauteous evening,	136
95.	""	Yarrow Unvisited,	136
96.	""	Yarrow Visited,	139
97.	""	On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic,	142
98.	""	London, 1802,	142
99.	""	Most sweet it is,	143
100.	""	Lines Written in Early Spring,	143