THE
OXFORD BOOK
OF
ENGLISH VERSE
The
Oxford Book
Of English Verse
1250—1900
Impression of 1931
First edition, 1900
The
Oxford Book
Of English Verse
1250 - 1900
Chosen & Edited by
Arthur Quiller-Couch
Oxford
At the Clarendon Press
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
TO
THE PRESIDENT
FELLOWS AND SCHOLARS
OF
TRINITY COLLEGE OXFORD
A HOUSE OF LEARNING
ANCIENT LIBERAL HUMANE
AND MY MOST KINDLY NURSE
PREFACE
FOR this Anthology I have tried to range over the whole field of English Verse from the beginning, or from the Thirteenth Century to this closing year of the Nineteenth, and to choose the best. Nor have I sought in these Islands only, but wheresoever the Muse has followed the tongue which among living tongues she most delights to honour. To bring home and render so great a spoil compendiously has been my capital difficulty. It is for the reader to judge if I have so managed it as to serve those who already love poetry and to implant that love in some young minds not yet initiated.
My scheme is simple. I have arranged the poets as nearly as possible in order of birth, with such groupings of anonymous pieces as seemed convenient. For convenience, too, as well as to avoid a dispute-royal, I have gathered the most of the Ballads into the middle of the Seventeenth Century; where they fill a languid interval between two winds of inspiration—the Italian dying down with Milton and the French following at the heels of the restored Royalists. For convenience, again, I have set myself certain rules of spelling. In the very earliest poems inflection and spelling are structural, and to modernize is to destroy. But as old inflections fade into modern the old spelling becomes less and less vital, and has been brought (not, I hope, too abruptly) into line with that sanctioned by use and familiar. To do this seemed wiser than to discourage many readers for the sake of diverting others by a scent of antiquity which—to be essential—should breathe of something rarer than an odd arrangement of type. But there are scholars whom I cannot expect to agree with me; and to conciliate them I have excepted Spenser and Milton from the rule.
Glosses of archaic and otherwise difficult words are given at the foot of the page: but the text has not been disfigured with reference-marks. And rather than make the book unwieldy I have eschewed notes—reluctantly when some obscure passage or allusion seemed to ask for a timely word; with more equanimity when the temptation was to criticize or ‘appreciate.’ For the function of the anthologist includes criticizing in silence.
Care has been taken with the texts. But I have sometimes thought it consistent with the aim of the book to prefer the more beautiful to the better attested reading. I have often excised weak or superfluous stanzas when sure that excision would improve; and have not hesitated to extract a few stanzas from a long poem when persuaded that they could stand alone as a lyric. The apology for such experiments can only lie in their success: but the risk is one which, in my judgement, the anthologist ought to take. A few small corrections have been made, but only when they were quite obvious.
The numbers chosen are either lyrical or epigrammatic. Indeed I am mistaken if a single epigram included fails to preserve at least some faint thrill of the emotion through which it had to pass before the Muse’s lips let it fall, with however exquisite deliberation. But the lyrical spirit is volatile and notoriously hard to bind with definitions; and seems to grow wilder with the years. With the anthologist—as with the fisherman who knows the fish at the end of his sea-line—the gift, if he have it, comes by sense, improved by practice. The definition, if he be clever enough to frame one, comes by after-thought. I don't know that it helps, and am sure that it may easily mislead.
Having set my heart on choosing the best, I resolved not to be dissuaded by common objections against anthologies—that they repeat one another until the proverb δὶς ἤ τρὶς τὰ καλά loses all application—or perturbed if my judgement should often agree with that of good critics. The best is the best, though a hundred judges have declared it so; nor had it been any feat to search out and insert the second-rate merely because it happened to be recondite. To be sure, a man must come to such a task as mine haunted by his youth and the favourites he loved in days when he had much enthusiasm but little reading.
A deeper import
Lurks in the legend told my infant years
Than lies upon that truth we live to learn.
Few of my contemporaries can erase—or would wish to erase—the dye their minds took from the late Mr. Palgrave’s Golden Treasury: and he who has returned to it again and again with an affection born of companionship on many journeys must remember not only what the Golden Treasury includes, but the moment when this or that poem appealed to him, and even how it lies on the page. To Mr. Bullen’s Lyrics from the Elizabethan Song Books and his other treasuries I own a more advised debt. Nor am I free of obligation to anthologies even more recent—to Archbishop Trench’s Household Book of Poetry, Mr. Locker-Lampson’s Lyra Elegantiarum, Mr. Miles’ Poets and Poetry of the Century, Mr. Beeching’s Paradise of English Poetry, Mr. Henley’s English Lyrics, Mrs. Sharp’s Lyra Celtica, Mr. Yeats’ Book of Irish Verse, and Mr. Churton Collins’ Treasury of Minor British Poetry: though my rule has been to consult these after making my own choice. Yet I can claim that the help derived from them—though gratefully owned—bears but a trifling proportion to the labour, special and desultory, which has gone to the making of my book.
For the anthologist’s is not quite the dilettante business for which it is too often and ignorantly derided. I say this, and immediately repent; since my wish is that the reader should in his own pleasure quite forget the editor’s labour, which too has been pleasant: that, standing aside, I may believe this book has made the Muses’ access easier when, in the right hour, they come to him to uplift or to console—
ἄκλητος μὲν ἔγωγε μένοιμί κεν ἐς δὲ καλεύντων
θαρσήσας Μοίσαισι σὺν ἁμετέραισιν ἱκοίμαν.
CONTENTS
| Number | PAGE | |
| 1-7. | Anonymous. XIII-XIV Century | 1-10 |
| 8. | Robert Mannyng of Brunne. b. 1260, d. 1340 | 10 |
| 9. | John Barbour. d. 1395 | 10-11 |
| 10-12. | Geoffrey Chaucer. b. ? 1340, d. 1400 | 11-14 |
| 13. | Thomas Hoccleve. b. 1368-9, d. ? 1450 | 14-15 |
| 14. | John Lydgate. b. ? 1370, d. ? 1450 | 15 |
| 15. | King James I of Scotland. b. 1394, d. 1437 | 15 |
| 16-17. | Robert Henryson. b. 1425, d. 1500 | 16-25 |
| 18-21. | William Dunbar. b. 1465, d. ? 1520 | 25-33 |
| 22-29. | Anonymous. XV-XVI Century | 33-57 |
| 30-31. | John Skelton. b. 2 1460, d. 1529 | 57-59 |
| 32-33. | Stephen Hawes. d. 1523 | 59-60 |
| 34-38. | Sir Thomas Wyatt. b. 1503, d. 1542 | 60-65 |
| 39-41. | Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. b. 1516, d. 1547 | 65-68 |
| 42. | Nicholas Grimald. b. 1519, d, 1562 | 68-69 |
| 43-44. | Alexander Scott. b. 2 1520, d. 158- | 69-71 |
| 45 | Robert Wever. c. 1550 | 72 |
| 46. | Richard Edwardes. b. 1523, d. 1566 | 72-73 |
| 47. | George Gascoigne. b. ? 1525, d. 1577 | 74-75 |
| 48. | Alexander Montgomerie. b. ? 1540, d. ? 1610 | 75-77 |
| 49. | William Stevenson. b. 1530, d. 1575 | 77-78 |
| 50-72. | Anonymous. XVI-XVII Century | 79-99 |
| 73-74. | Nicholas Breton. b. 1542, d. 1626 | 100-102 |
| 75-78. | Sir Walter Raleigh. b. 1552, d. 1618 | 102-104 |
| 79-84. | Edmund Spenser. b. 1552, d. 1599 | 104-129 |
| 85-86. | John Lyly. b. 1553, d. 1606 | 129-130 |
| 87. | Anthony Munday. b. 1553, d. 1633 | 130 |
| 88-95. | Sir Philip Sidney. b. 1554, d. 1586 | 131-136 |
| 96. | Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke. b. 1554, d. 1628 | 136-137 |
| 97-100. | Thomas Lodge. b. ? 1556, d. 1625 | 137-141 |
| 101-102. | George Peele. b. 1558, d. 1597 | 141-143 |
| 103-105. | Robert Greene. b. 1560, d. 1592 | 143-145 |
| 106. | Alexander Hume. b. 1560, d. 1609 | 146-150 |
| 107. | George Chapman. b. 1560, d. 1634 | 150 |
| 108-109. | Robert Southwell. b. 1561, d. 1595 | 151-153 |
| 110. | Henry Constable. b. ? 1562, d. ? 1613 | 153 |
| 111–113. | Samuel Daniel. b. 1562, d. 1619 |
153–159 |
| 114. | Mark Alexander Boyd. b. 1563, d. 1601 |
160 |
| 115. | Joshua Sylvester. b. 1563, d. 1618 |
160–161 |
| 116–120. | Michael Drayton. b. 1563, d. 1631 |
161–173 |
| 121. | Christopher Marlowe. b. 1564, d. 1593 |
173–174 |
| 122. | Sir Walter Raleigh. b. 1552, d. 1618 |
174–175 |
| 123–164. | William Shakespeare. b. 1564, d. 1616 |
175–200 |
| 165. | Richard Rowlands. b. 1565, d. ? 1630 |
200–201 |
| 166–167. | Thomas Nashe. b. 1567, d. 1601 |
201–203 |
| 168–176. | Thomas Campion, b. ? 1567, d. 1619 |
203–209 |
| 177. | John Reynolds. XVI Century |
209–210 |
| 178–180. | Sir Henry Wotton. b. 1568, d. 1639 |
210–212 |
| 181. | Sir John Davies. b. 1569, d. 1626 |
212–213 |
| 182–183. | Sir Robert Ayton. b. 1570, d. 1638 |
213–215 |
| 184–194. | Ben Jonson. b. 1573, d. 1637 |
215–225 |
| 195–202. | John Donne, b. 1573, d. 1631 |
225–231 |
| 203. | Richard Barnefield. b. 1574, d. 1627 |
232 |
| 204. | Thomas Dekker. b. 1575, d. 1641 |
233 |
| 205–206. | Thomas Heywood. b. ? 157–, d. 1650 |
233–235 |
| 207–217. | John Fletcher, b. 1579, d. 1625 |
235–241 |
| 218–220. | John Webster, d. ? 1630 |
242–243 |
| 221. | William Alexander, Earl of Stirling, b. ? 1580, d. 1640 |
243–244 |
| 222. | Phineas Fletcher, b. 1580, d. 1650 |
244 |
| 223. | Sir John Beaumont, b. 1583, d. 1627 |
245 |
| 224–232. | William Drummond, of Hawthornden. b. 1585, d. 1649 |
245–250 |
| 233. | Giles Fletcher, b. 158–, d. 1623 |
250–252 |
| 234. | Francis Beaumont, b. 1586, d. 1616 |
252 |
| 235. | John Ford. b. 1586, d. 1639 |
253 |
| 236–239. | George Wither, b. 1588, d. 1667 |
253–260 |
| 240–246. | William Browne, of Tavistock. b. 1588, d. 1643 |
260–264 |
| 247–275. | Robert Herrick. b. 1591, d. 1674 |
264–284 |
| 276–277. | Francis Quarles. b. 1592, d. 1644 |
285 |
| 278–280. | Henry King, Bishop of Chichester. b. 1592, d. 1669 |
286–290 |
| 281–286. | George Herbert, b. 1593, d. 1632 |
290–295 |
| 287–288. | James Shirley, b. 1596, d. 1666 |
295–296 |
| 289–295. | Thomas Carew. b ? 1595 d. ? 1639 |
297–301 |
| 296. | Jasper Mayne. b. 1604, d. 1672 |
301–302 |
| 297–298. | William Habington. b. 1605, d. 1654 |
302–304 |
| 299–300. | Thomas Randolph, b. 1605, d. 1635 |
305–308 |
| 301–303. | Sir William Davenant. b. 1606, d. 1668 |
308–309 |
| 304–306. | Edmund Waller, b. 1606, d. 1687 |
310–311 |
NUMBER PAGE
334. James Graham, Marquis of Montrose. b. 1612,
408. Charles Sackville, Earl of Dorset, b. 1638, 413-416. John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, b. 1647,
417-418. John Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire.
421. John Cutts, Lord Cutts. b. 1661, d
436. Thomas Parnell. b. 1679, d. 1718 . ^"itfio.'- 5i
��xv
�� � CONTENTS
��NUMBER 438. 439- 440-442.
443.
444-445- 446-447. 44 8. 449-
��452.
453-456.
457-460.
461-463.
464.
465.
4 66.
467-468.
469.
470-471. 472.
473- 474- 475- 476.
477- 478.
479-
480-482. 483-492. 493-506. 507-508.
509- 510. 511. 512.
SJS-SH-
515-541.
542-548.
549-555-
556.
557-576.
��PAGE George Bubb Dodington, Lord Melcombe. George Lyttelton, Lord Lyttelton. b. 1709, Robert Cunninghame-Graham of Gartmore.
xvi
�� �
| 577–579. | Charles Lamb. b. 1775. d. 1834 |
668–672 |
| 580–581. | Thomas Campbell. b. 1777, d. 1844 |
672–675 |
| 582–585. | Thomas Moore. b. 1779, d. 1852 |
675–678 |
| 586. | Edward Thurlow, Lord Thurlow. b. 1781, d. 1829 |
678–679 |
| 587–588. | Ebenezer Elliott. b. 1781, d. 1849 |
679–681 |
| 589–591. | Allan Cunningham. b. 1784, d. 1841 |
681–683 |
| 592. | Leigh Hunt. b. 1784, d. 1859 |
683 |
| 593–595. | Thomas Love Peacock. b. 1785, d. 1866 |
684–687 |
| 596 | Caroline Southey. b. 1787, d. 1854 |
687–688 |
| 597–601. | George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron. b. 1788, d. 1824 |
688–694 |
| 602. | Sir Aubrey de Vere. b. 1788, d. 1846 |
694–695 |
| 603–604. | Charles Wolfe. b. 1791, d. 1825 |
695–697 |
| 605–618. | Percy Bysshe Shelley. b. 1792, d. 1822 |
697–717 |
| 619. | Hew Ainslie. b. 1792, d. 1878 |
717 |
| 620. | John Keble. b. 1792, d. 1866 |
718–720 |
| 621. | John Clare. b. 1793, d. 1864 |
720 |
| 622. | Felicia Dorothea Hemans. b. 1793, d. 1835 |
721 |
| 623–637. | John Keats. b. 1795, d. 1821 |
721–744 |
| 638. | Jeremiah Joseph Callanan. b. 1795, d. 1839 |
745 |
| 639. | William Sidney Walker. b. 1795, d. 1846 |
746 |
| 640–642. | George Darley. b. 1795, d. 1846 |
746–749 |
| 643–646. | Hartley Coleridge. b. 1796, d. 1849 |
749–751 |
| 647–654. | Thomas Hood. b. 1798, d. 1845 |
752–762 |
| 655. | William Thom. b. 1798, d. 1848 |
762–764 |
| 656. | Sir Henry Taylor. b. 1800, d. 1886 |
764 |
| 657. | Thomas Babington Macaulay, Lord Macaulay. b. 1800, d. 1859 |
765 |
| 658–659. | William Barnes. b. 1801, d. 1886 |
765–767 |
| 660. | Winthrop Mackworth Praed. b. 1802, d. 1839 |
767–768 |
| 661–662. | Sara Coleridge. b. 1802,d. 1850 |
768–770 |
| 663. | Gerald Griffin. b. 1803, d. 1840 |
770–772 |
| 664–665. | James Clarence Mangan. b. 1803, d. 1849 |
772–776 |
| 666–668. | Thomas Lovell Beddoes. b. 1803, d. 1849 |
777–778 |
| 669–672. | Ralph Waldo Emerson. b. 1803, d. 1882 |
779–785 |
| 673. | Richard Henry Horne. b. 1803, d. 1884 |
785–786 |
| 674–675. | Robert Stephen Hawker. b. 1804, d. 1875 |
786–787 |
| 676. | Thomas Wade. b. 1805, d. 1875 |
787 |
| 677. | Francis Mahony. b. 1805, d. 1866 |
788–790 |
| 677–687. | Elizabeth Barrett Browning. b. 1806, d. 1861 |
790–800 |
| 688. | Frederick Tennyson. b. 1807, d. 1898 |
800 |
| 689. | Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. b. 1807, d. 1882 |
801–803 |
| 690. | John Greenleaf Whittier. b. 1807, d. 1892 |
804 |
| 691. | Helen Selina, Lady Dufferin. b. 1807, d. 1867 |
805–807 |
| 692. | Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton. b. 1808, d. 1876 |
807–808 |
| 693. | Charles Tennyson Turner. b. 1808, d. 1879 |
808 |
| 694–696. | Edgar Allan Poe. b. 1809, d. 1849 |
809–814 |
| 697–698. | Edward Fitzgerald. b. 1809, d. 1883 |
814–818 |
| 699–709. | Alfred Tennyson, Lord Tennyson. b. 1809, d. 1892 |
819–847 |
| 710. | Richard Monckton Milnes, Lord Houghton. b. 1809, d. 1885 |
848 |
| 711. | Henry Alford. b. 1810, d. 1871 |
849 |
| 712–714. | Sir Samuel Ferguson. b. 1810, d. 1886 |
849–851 |
| 715–730. | Robert Browning. b. 1812, d. 1889 |
852–867 |
| 731. | William Bell Scott. b. 1812, d. 1890 |
867–872 |
| 732–733. | Aubrey De Vere. b. 1814, d. 1902 |
872–873 |
| 734. | George Fox. b. 1815 |
874 |
| 735–738. | Emily Brontë. b. 1318, d. 1848 |
875–879 |
| 739–740. | Charles Kingsley. b. 1819, d. 1875 |
879–880 |
| 741. | Arthur Hugh Clough. b. 1819, d. 1861 |
880–881 |
| 742–743. | Walt Whitman. b. 1819, d. 1892 |
881–882 |
| 744. | John Ruskin. b. 1819, d. 1900 |
882 |
| 745. | Ebenezer Jones. b. 1820, d. 1860 |
883 |
| 746. | Frederick Locker-Lampson. b. 1821, d. 1895 |
884 |
| 747–754. | Matthew Arnold. b. 1822, d. 1888 |
885–903 |
| 755–756. | William Brighty Rands. b. 1823, d. 1880 |
904–905 |
| 757. | William Philpot. b. 1823, d. 1880 |
906–907 |
| 758–759. | William (Johnson) Cory. b. 1823, d. 1892 |
907–908 |
| 760–764. | Coventry Patmore. b. 1823, d. 1896 |
908–913 |
| 765–768. | Sydney Dobell. b. 1824, d. 1874 |
913–921 |
| 769. | William Allingham. b. 1824, d. 1889 |
921–923 |
| 770. | George MacDonald. b. 1824, d. 1905 |
923 |
| 771. | Dante Gabriel Rossetti. b. 1828, d. 1882 |
923–928 |
| 772–776. | George Meredith. b. 1828, d. 1909 |
929–942 |
| 777–778. | Alexander Smith. b. 1829, d. 1867 |
942–945 |
| 779–789. | Christina Georgina Rossetti. b. 1830, d. 1894. |
946–954 |
| 790–793. | Thomas Edward Brown. b. 1830, d. 1897 |
955–956 |
| 794–795. | Edward Robert Bulwer Lylton, Earl of Lytton. b. 1831, d. 1892 |
957–962 |
| 796–799. | James Thomson. b. 1834, d. 1882 |
963–964 |
| 800–802. | William Morris. b. 1834. d. 1896 |
965–967 |
| 803–804. | Roden Berkeley Wriothesley Noel. b. 1834, d. 1894 |
967–969 |
| 805–806. | Thomas Ashe. b. 1836, d. 1889 |
969–970 |
| 807. | Theodore Watts-Dunton. b. 1836, d. 1914. |
970–972 |
| 808–811. | Algernon Charles Swinburne. b. 1837, d. 1909 |
972–991 |
| 812. | William Dean Howells. b. 1837 |
991 |
| 813. | Bret Harte. b. 1839, d. 1902 |
992 |
| 814–815. | John Todhunter. b. 1839, d. 1916 |
993–995 |
| 816–823. | Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. b. 1840 |
995–1002 |
| 824–826. | Henry Austin Dobson. b. 1840 |
1002–1004 |
| 827. | Henry Clarence Kendall. b. 1841, d. 1882 |
1004–1006 |
| 828–830. | Arthur William Edgar O’Shaugbnessy. b. 1844, d. 1881 |
1006–1010 |
| 831. | John Boyle O’Reilly. b. 1844, d. 1890 |
1010 |
| 832–840. | Robert Bridges. b. 1844 |
1011–1018 |
| 841. | Andrew Lang. b. 1844, d. 1912 |
1018 |
| 842–844. | William Ernest Henley. b. 1849, d. 1903 |
1019–1022 |
| 845. | Edmund Gosse. b. 1849 |
1022–1023 |
| 846–848. | Robert Louis Stevenson. b. 1850, d. 1894 |
1023–1025 |
| 849. | T. W. Rolleston. b. 1857 |
1025–1026 |
| 850–851. | John Davidson. b. 1857, d. 1909 |
1026–1028 |
| 852–854. | William Watson. b. 1858 |
1028–1031 |
| 855–856. | Henry Charles Beeching. b. 1859. |
1031–1033 |
| 857. | Bliss Carman. b. 1861 |
1033–1034 |
| 858. | Douglas Hyde. b. 1861 |
1034–1035 |
| 859. | Arthur Christopher Benson. b. 1862 |
1035–1036 |
| 860. | Henry Newbolt. b. 1862 |
1036–1037 |
| 861. | Gilbert Parker. b. 1862 |
1038 |
| 862–864. | William Butler Yeats. b. 1865 |
1038–1039 |
| 865–867. | Rudyard Kipling. b. 1865 |
1040–1045 |
| 868–869. | Richard Le Gallienne. b. 1866 |
1045–1047 |
| 870–871. | Laurence Binyon. b. 1869 |
1047 |
| 872–873. | ‘A. E.’ (George William Russell) |
1048–1049 |
| 874. | T. Sturge Moore. b. 1870 |
1049 |
| 875. | Francis Thompson. b. 1859, d. 1907 |
1050–1052 |
| 876. | Henry Cust. b. 1861, d. 1917 |
1053 |
| 877. | Katharine Tynan Hinkson. b. 1861 |
1053–1054 |
| 878. | Frances Bannerman |
1054–1055 |
| 879–880. | Alice Meynell. b. 1850 |
1055–1056 |
| 881. | Dora Sigerson. d. 1918 |
1056–1057 |
| 882. | Margaret L. Woods. b. 1856 |
1057 |
| 883. | Anonymous |
1058 |
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Works published in 1931 would have had to renew their copyright in either 1958 or 1959, i.e. at least 27 years after it was first published / registered but not later than in the 28th year. As it was not renewed, it entered the public domain on .