To My Mother.
THE
GOLDEN TREASURY
OF
AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS
EDITED BY
FREDERIC LAWRENCE KNOWLES
NEW REVISED EDITION
L.C. PAGE AND COMPANY
(INCORPORATED)
MDCCCXCIX
PREFACE.
The numerous collections of American verse share, I think, one fault incommon: they include too much. Whether this has been a bid forpopularity, a concession to Philistia, I cannot say; but the factremains that all anthologies of American poetry are, so far as I know,more or less uncritical. The aim of the present book is different. In nocase has a poem been included because it is widely known. The purpose ofthis compilation is solely that of preserving, in attractive andpermanent form, about one hundred and fifty of the best lyrics ofAmerica.
I am quite aware of the danger attending such exacting honor-rolls. Atbest, an editor's judgment is only personal, and the realization of thisfact gives me no small diffidence in attempting to decide what Americanlyrics are best worthy of preservation. That every reader of the"American Treasury" will find some favorite poem omitted, there can belittle doubt. But the effort made in this book towards a carefulestimate of our lyrical poetry is at any rate, I feel sure, in a gooddirection.
There appear in the index of Mr. Stedman's "Poets of America" the namesof over three hundred native writers. American verse in the last halfcentury has been extraordinarily prolific. It would seem that the timehas come, in the course of our national literature, for proving allthings and holding fast that which is good.
The fact that the title of this compilation instantly calls to mind thatof Mr. Palgrave's scholarly collection of English lyrics need not provea disadvantage to the book if the purpose which led to the choice ofname is understood. The verse of a single century produced in a newcountry should not be expected to equal the poetic wealth of an old andintellectual nation. But if American poetry cannot hope to rival thepoetry of the mother country, it may at least be compared with it; andthe fact of such a comparative point of view will aid rather than hinderthe student of our native poetry in estimating its value.
American verse has suffered at the hands both of its admirers and itsenemies. Injudicious praise, no less than supercilious contempt, hasreacted unfavorably on the fame of our poets. Again and again has someminor versifier been hailed as the "American Keats" or the "AmericanBurns." Really excellent poets, though distinctly poets of second rank,have been elevated amid the blare of critical trumpets to the compan