This volume is issued in the belief that English poetry is now once
again putting on a new strength and beauty.
Few readers have the leisure or the zeal to investigate each volume as
it appears; and the process of recognition is often slow. This
collection, drawn entirely from the publications of the past two years,
may if it is fortunate help the lovers of poetry to realize that we are
at the beginning of another "Georgian period" which may take rank in due
time with the several great poetic ages of the past.
It has no pretension to cover the field. Every reader will notice the
absence of poets whose work would be a necessary ornament of any
anthology not limited by a definite aim. Two years ago some of the
writers represented had published nothing; and only a very few of the
others were known except to the eagerest "watchers of the skies." Those
few are here because within the chosen period their work seemed to have
gained some accession of power.
My grateful thanks are due to the writers who have lent me their poems,
and to the publishers (Messrs Elkin Mathews, Sidgwick and Jackson,
Methuen, Fifield, Constable, Nutt, Dent, Duckworth, Longmans, and
Maunsel, and the Editors of 'Basileon', 'Rhythm', and the 'English
Review') under whose imprint they have appeared.