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Golden Treasury Series
THE
CHILDREN'S GARLAND
FROM THE BEST POETS
SELECTED AND ARRANGED BY
COVENTRY PATMORE
London
MACMILLAN AND CO.
AND NEW YORK
1895
First Edition printed 1861 (dated 1862). Reprinted with corrections,and Index added, February 1862. Reprinted with corrections, 1863.Reprinted 1866, 1871, 1874, 1877, 1879, March and August 1882, 1884,1891, 1892, 1895.
PREFACE
This volume will, I hope, be found to containnearly all the genuine poetry in our languagefitted to please children,—of and fromthe age at which they have usually learnedto read,—in common with grown people. Acollection on this plan has, I believe, neverbefore been made, although the value of theprinciple seems clear.
The test applied, in every instance, in thework of selection, has been that of havingactually pleased intelligent children; and myobject has been to make a book which shallbe to them no more nor less than a book ofequally good poetry is to intelligent grownpersons. The charm of such a book to thelatter class of readers is rather increased thanlessened by the surmised existence in it ofan unknown amount of power, meaning andbeauty, beyond that which is at once to beseen; and children will not like this volumethe less because, though containing little ornothing which will not at once please andamuse them, it also contains much, the fullexcellence of which they may not as yet be ableto understand.
The application of the practical test abovementioned has excluded nearly all verse writtenexpressly for children, and most of the poetrywritten about children for grown people. Hence,the absence of several well-known pieces, whichsome persons who examine this volume maybe surprised at not finding in it.
I have taken the liberty of omitting portionsof a few poems, which would else have been toolong or otherwise unsuitable for the collection;and, in a very few instances, I have venturedto substitute a word or a phrase, when thatof the author has made the piece in whichit occurs unfit for children's reading. Theabbreviations I have been compelled to makein the "Ancient Mariner," in order to bringthat poem within the limits of this collection,are so considerable as to require particularmention and apology.
No translations have been inserted but suchas, by their originality of style and modificationof detail, are entitled to stand as originalpoems.
Coventry Patmore.
INDEX OF FIRST LINES
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