THE ENGLISHMAN IN GREECE Being a Collection of The Verse of many English Poets With an Introduction by SIR RENNELL RODD OXFORD At the Clarendon Press HENRY FROWDE, M.A. PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD LONDON, EDINBURGH, NEW YORK TORONTO AND MELBOURNE HE compiler gratefully acknowledges permission to make use of some poems still in copyright TH To Messrs. George Bell & Sons, for the poem by T. Ashe entitled Cleobis and Bito. To Messrs. Constable & Co. and to Messrs. Scribner & Co., for two poems by George Meredith. To Mr. Austin Dobson, for three of his poems. To Messrs. Longmans, Green & Co., for two poems by Mr. Andrew Lang. To Messrs. Macmillan & Co., for Clough's Actaeon. To Mr. T. Sturge Moore, for his poem entitled The Vinedresser. To Mr. Robert Ross, for Oscar Wilde's poem entitled Impression de Voyage. To Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co., for two poems by Robert Browning. To the Trustees of the late William Morris, for four of his poems. To Lady Leighton Warren, for the poem by Lord de Tabley. To Mr. Theodore Watts-Dunton, for nine poems by A. C. Swinburne. He also offers his sincere thanks to Professor E. de Sélincourt, the Rev. G. K. A. Bell, and Mr. Hugh Cass for valuable suggestions and criticisms. It would have been pleasant to include the whole of Hero and Leander, and the whole of Hyperion; considerations of space, however, prevented this, and the attempt to make selections from either proved unsuccessful. 256991 H. S. M. INTRODUCTION HE literary record of the Englishman in Greece THE offers a less copious material from which to select than that of the Englishman in Italy, to which cherished land, throughout the century but recently closed, our most illustrious singers have dedicated so much of their affection and genius. With the exception of Byron the greater English poets have known Greece only in the spirit, though Keats indeed might almost be regarded as one born in exile from his appropriate country, consumed with a perpetual longing for the Latmos and Olympos of his dreams. And now that the highways and waterways are open, that communications easy and secure have unveiled the hidden charms of the storied land, it would almost seem as though the fountains of inspiration were dry. A selection from the works of English authors on Greece must therefore inevitably rather reflect the classic spirit than reveal the living character. And yet there is no country which should appeal more directly to the poet, not alone for the wealth of tradition which makes each shifting scene the home of myth or story endeared by ineffaceable association, not alone for the unrivalled beauty of the mountain forms and the deep indented valleys through which the sea winds into the heart of the land, for the marvel of tone and colour with which the sun invests the clear outlines, transforming |