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PREFACE

THIS volume will, I hope, be found to connearly all the genuine poetry in our lange fitted to please children,-of and from age at which they have usually learned read,-in common with grown people. A lection on this plan has, I believe, never ore been made, although the value of the nciple seems clear.

The test applied, in every instance, in the k of selection, has been that of having ally pleased intelligent children; and my ect has been to make a book which shall to them no more nor less than a book of ally good poetry is to intelligent grown sons. The charm of such a book to the er class of readers is rather increased than ened by the surmised existence in it of unknown amount of power, meaning and uty, beyond that which is at once to be n; and children will not like this volume less because, though containing little or hing which will not at once please and use 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.

COVENTRY PATMORE.

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A perilous life, and sad as life may be
A widow bird sate mourning for her love

A wonder stranger ne'er was known

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase)
Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight.
Among the dwellings framed by birds
An ancient story I'll tell you anon

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Attend all ye who list to hear our noble England's praise

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Did you hear of the curate who mounted his mare
Do you ask what the birds say? The sparrow, the dove.

Faintly as tolls the evening chime

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Fair daffodils, we weep to see .

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Full fathom five thy father lies

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Gentlefolks, in my time, I've made many a rhyme.

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Good-bye, good-bye to Suminer

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I sail'd from the Downs in the Nancy
I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris and he

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