The Flower of the Mind
Transcribed from the 1898 Grant Richards edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
Of this reissue only 250 copies will be bound up .
A Choice among the best Poems
MADE BY
ALICE MEYNELL
LONDON GRANT RICHARDS 9 HENRIETTA STREET 1898
Edinburgh: T. and A. Constable, Printers to Her Majesty
Partial collections of English poems, decided by a common subject or bounded by narrow dates and periods of literary history, are made at very short intervals, and the makers are safe from the reproach of proposing their own personal taste as a guide for the reading of others. But a general Anthology gathered from the whole of English literature—the whole from Chaucer to Wordsworth—by a gatherer intent upon nothing except the quality of poetry, is a more rare enterprise. It is hardly to be made without tempting the suspicion—nay, hardly without seeming to hazard the confession—of some measure of self-confidence. Nor can even the desire to enter upon that labour be a frequent one—the desire of the heart of one for whom poetry is veritably ‘the complementary life’ to set up a pale for inclusion and exclusion, to add honours, to multiply homage, to cherish, to restore, to protest, to proclaim, to depose; and to gain the consent of a multitude of readers to all those acts. Many years, then—some part of a century—may easily pass between the publication of one general anthology and the making of another.
The enterprise would be a sorry one if it were really arbitrary, and if an anthologist should give effect to passionate preferences without authority. An anthology that shall have any value must be made on the responsibility of one but on the authority of many. There is no caprice; the mind of the maker has been formed for decision by the wisdom of many instructors. It is the very study of criticism, and the grateful and profitable study, that gives the justification to work done upon the strongest personal impulse, and done, finally, in the mental solitude that cannot be escaped at the last. In another order, moral education would be best crowned if it proved to have quick and profound control over the first impulses; its finished work would be to set the soul in a state of law, delivered from the delays of self-distrust; not action only, but the desires would be in an old security, and a wish would come to light already justified. This would be the second—if it were not the only—liberty. Even so an intellectual education might assuredly confer freedom upon first and solitary thoughts, and confidence and composure upon the sallies of impetuous courage. In a word, it should make a studious anthologist quite sure about genius. And all who have bestowed, or helped in bestowing, the liberating education have given their student the authority to be free. Personal and singular the choice in such a book must be, not without right.
Alice Meynell
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THE FIRST CAROL
VERSES BEFORE DEATH
EASTER
FRESH SPRING
LIKE AS A SHIP
EPITHALAMION
THE SPRING
TRUE LOVE
THE MOON
KISS
SWEET JUDGE
SLEEP
WAT’RED WAS MY WINE
ROSALYND’S MADRIGAL
ROSALINE
THE SOLITARY SHEPHERD’S SONG
ANONYMOUS
I SAW MY LADY WEEP
FAREWELL TO ARMS
FAWNIA
SEPHESTIA’S SONG TO HER CHILD
THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE
SLEEP
SINCE THERE’S NO HELP
WERE I AS BASE
FANCY
FAIRIES
FULL FATHOM FIVE
SONG
SONG
ANONYMOUS
TOM O’ BEDLAM
KIND ARE HER ANSWERS
LAURA
FOLLOW
WHEN THOU MUST HOME
WESTERN WIND
FOLLOW YOUR SAINT
CHERRY-RIPE
SPRING
THIS HAPPY DREAM
DEATH
HYMN TO GOD THE FATHER
THE NIGHTINGALE
CHARIS’ TRIUMPH
JEALOUSY
EPITAPH ON ELIZABETH L. H.
HYMN TO DIANA
ON MY FIRST DAUGHTER
ECHO’S LAMENT FOB NARCISSUS
AN EPITAPH ON SALATHIEL PAVY, A CHILD OF QUEEN ELIZABETH’S CHAPEL
INVOCATION TO SLEEP, FROM VALENTINIAN
TO BACCHUS
SONG FROM THE DUCHESS OF MALFI
SONG FROM THE DEVIL’S LAW-CASE
IN EARTH, DIRGE FROM VITTORIA COROMBONA
SONG
SLEEP, SILENCE’ CHILD
TO THE NIGHTINGALE
MADRIGAL I
MADRIGAL II
I DIED TRUE
ON THE TOMBS IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY
TO CYNTHIA, ON CONCEALMENT OF HER BEAUTY
MATIN SONG
SLEEP, BABY, SLEEP!
SONG
AN HYMENEAL DIALOGUE
INGRATEFUL BEAUTY THREATENED
LULLABY
SWEET CONTENT
GOOD-MORROW
TO DIANEME
TO MEADOWS
TO BLOSSOMS
TO DAFFODILS
TO PRIMROSES
TO DAISIES, NOT TO SHUT SO SOON
TO THE VIRGINS, TO MAKE MUCH OF TIME
DRESS
IN SILKS
CORINNA’S GOING A-MAYING
BEN JONSON
HOLY BAPTISM
VIRTUE
UNKINDNESS
LOVE
THE PULLEY
THE COLLAR
LIFE
MISERY
EQUALITY
LULLABY
MORNING
THE ROSE
HIS MISTRESS
A SONNET OF THE MOON
HYMN ON CHRIST’S NATIVITY
L’ALLEGRO
IL PENSEROSO
LYCIDAS
ON HIS BLINDNESS
ON SHAKESPEARE
INVOCATION TO SABRINA, FROM COMUS
INVOCATION TO ECHO, FROM COMUS
THE VIGIL OF DEATH
ON A PRAYER-BOOK SENT TO MRS. M. R.
TO THE MORNING
ON MR. G. HERBERT’S BOOK
WISHES TO HIS SUPPOSED MISTRESS
ON THE DEATH OF MR. CRASHAW
HYMN TO THE LIGHT
TO LUCASTA ON GOING TO THE WARS
TO AMARANTHA
A GUILTLESS LADY IMPRISONED: AFTER PENANCED
THE ROSE
A HORATIAN ODE UPON CROMWELL’S RETURN FROM IRELAND
THE NYMPH COMPLAINING OF THE DEATH OF HER FAWN
THE DEFINITION OF LOVE
THE GARDEN
THE DAWNING
CHILDHOOD
CORRUPTION
THE NIGHT
THE ECLIPSE
THE RETREAT
THE WORLD OF LIGHT
SCOTTISH BALLADS
HELEN OF KIRCONNELL
THE WIFE OF USHER’S WELL
THE DOWIE DENS OF YARROW
SIR PATRICK SPENS
A LYKE-WAKE DIRGE
ODE
SONG, FROM ABDELAZAR
HYMN
ELEGY
LINES ON RECEIVING HIS MOTHER’S PICTURE
LIFE
THE LAND OF DREAMS
THE PIPER
HOLY THURSDAY
THE TIGER
TO THE MUSES
LOVE’S SECRET
TO A MOUSE
THE FAREWELL
WHY ART THOU SILENT?
IT IS A BEAUTEOUS EVENING, CALM AND FREE
O FRIEND! I KNOW NOT
TO TOUSSAINT L’OUVERTURE
THE WORLD
WHEN I HAVE BORNE IN MEMORY
THE DAFFODILS
THE SOLITARY REAPER
ELEGIAC STANZAS
TO H. C.
’TIS SAID THAT SOME HAVE DIED FOR LOVE
STEPPING WESTWARD
THE CHILDLESS FATHER
PROUD MAISIE
A WEARY LOT IS THINE
THE MAID OF NEIDPATH
YOUTH AND AGE
ROSE AYLMER
CHILD OF A DAY
HOHENLINDEN
EARL MARCH
HESTER.
A WET SHEET AND A FLOWING SEA
THE ISLES OF GREECE
HELLAS
WILD WITH WEEPING
TO THE NIGHT
THE QUESTION
THE WANING MOON
RARELY, RARELY COMEST THOU
THE INVITATION, TO JANE
THE RECOLLECTION
ODE TO HEAVEN
LIFE OF LIFE
AUTUMN
DIRGE FOR THE YEAR
A WIDOW BIRD
THE TWO SPIRITS
ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN’S HOMER
THE GENTLE SOUTH
ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE
ODE ON A GRECIAN URN
ODE TO PSYCHE
ODE TO MELANCHOLY
SHE IS NOT FAIR
FOOTNOTES.