This volume will, I hope, be found to contain nearly all the genuine
poetry in our language fitted to please children,--of and from the age
at which they have usually learned to read,--in common with grown
people. A collection on this plan has, I believe, never before been
made, although the value of the principle seems clear.
The test applied, in every instance, in the work of selection, has been
that of having actually pleased intelligent children; and my object has
been to make a book which shall be to them no more nor less than a book
of equally good poetry is to intelligent grown persons. The charm of
such a book to the latter class of readers is rather increased than
lessened by the surmised existence in it of an unknown amount of power,
meaning and beauty, beyond that which is at once to be seen; and
children will not like this volume the less because, though containing
little or nothing which will not at once please and amuse them, it also
contains much, the full excellence of which they may not as yet be able
to understand.
The application of the practical test above mentioned has excluded
nearly all verse written expressly for children, and most of the poetry
written about children for grown people. Hence, the absence of several
well-known pieces, which some persons who examine this volume may be
surprised at not finding in it.
I have taken the liberty of omitting portions of a few poems, which
would else have been too long or otherwise unsuitable for the
collection; and, in a very few instances, I have ventured to substitute
a word or a phrase, when that of the author has made the piece in which
it occurs unfit for children's reading. The abbreviations I have been
compelled to make in the "Ancient Mariner," in order to bring that poem
within the limits of this collection, are so considerable as to require
particular mention and apology.
No translations have been inserted but such as, by their originality of
style and modification of detail, are entitled to stand as original
poems.