The Oxford Book Of American Verse Chosen & Edited by NEW YORK OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 1927 0955 COPYRIGHT 1927 BY OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS AMERICAN BRANCH PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA stacks PREFACE THE HE chief purpose of a prefatory note to an anthology is to make due acknowledgment to the poets and publishers who have permitted the use of their property. For their courteous co-operation in the present instance, I am glad to join The Oxford University Press in this expression of thanks. A brief word may be added as to the work itself. The Oxford Book of American Verse does not attempt to be in the least encyclopaedic. It is a comparatively small anthology, and cannot pretend to compete with a work such as Mr. Stedman's invaluable book was in its day, and still is for the period it covers; nor does it compare for our own time with the thorough and extensive compendium of Miss Monroe and Mrs. Henderson. The Oxford Book, after the manner of anthologies, takes a much more skimming view of the whole field of American verse, and it must be confessed a rather more irresponsible one. Not that I have felt licensed to indulge any waywardness or perversity of preference in making the selections. On the contrary, since I have been given so free a hand, I have felt all the more a need for judicious care, and for a fineness of poetic judgment much more accurate than will here appear. Some years ago I was employed with others in compiling a ten-volume work entitled The World's Best Poetry. A number of eminent men were to be engaged to edit the various volumes, and we wanted James Whitcomb Riley to take charge of the volume of Humorous Verse. |