And rather than make the book unwieldy I have
eschewed notes--reluctantly when some obscure passage or allusion
seemed to ask for a timely word; with more equanimity when the
temptation was to criticize or 'appreciate.' For the function of
the anthologist includes criticizing in silence.
Care has been taken with the texts. But I have sometimes thought
it consistent with the aim of the book to prefer the more
beautiful to the better attested reading. I have often excised
weak or superfluous stanzas when sure that excision would improve;
and have not hesitated to extract a few stanzas from a long poem
when persuaded that they could stand alone as a lyric. The apology
for such experiments can only lie in their success: but the risk
is one which, in my judgement, the anthologist ought to take. A
few small corrections have been made, but only when they were
quite obvious.
The numbers chosen are either lyrical or epigrammatic. Indeed I
am mistaken if a single epigram included fails to preserve at
least some faint thrill of the emotion through which it had to
pass before the Muse's lips let it fall, with however exquisite
deliberation. But the lyrical spirit is volatile and notoriously
hard to bind with definitions; and seems to grow wilder with the
years. With the anthologist--as with the fisherman who knows the
fish at the end of his sea-line--the gift, if he have it, comes by
sense, improved by practice.
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