The inestimable value of literature in supplying healthful recreation, in opening the mind to larger views of life, and in creating ideals that shall mold the spiritual nature, is conceded now by every one who has intelligently considered the problems of education. But the basis upon which literature shall be selected and arranged is still a matter of discussion.

Chronology, race-correspondence, correlation, and ethical training should all be recognized incidentally; but the main purpose of the teacher of literature is to send children on into life with a genuine love for good reading. To accomplish this, three things should be true of the reading offered: first, it should be literature; second, it should be literature of some scope, not merely some small phase of literature, such as the fables, or the poetry of one of the less eminent poets; and third, it should appeal to children's natural interests. Children's interests, varied as they seem, center in the marvelous and the preternatural; in the natural world; and in human life, especially child life and the romantic and heroic aspects of mature life. In the selections made for each grade, we have recognized these different interests.

To grade poetry perfectly for different ages is an impossibility; much of the greatest verse is for all ages—that is one reason why it is great. A child of five will lisp the numbers of Horatius with delight; and Scott's Lullaby of an Infant Chief, with its romantic color and its exquisite human tenderness, is dear to childhood, to manhood, and to old age. But the Land of Song is a great undiscovered country to the little child; by some road or other he must find his way into it; and these volumes simply attempt to point out a path through which he may be led into its happy fields.

Our earnest thanks are due to the following publishers for permission to use copyrighted poems: to Houghton, Mifflin & Co. for poems by Longfellow, Whittier, Emerson, Holmes, Lowell, Aldrich, Bayard Taylor, James T. Fields, Phœbe Cary, Lucy Larcom, Celia Thaxter, and Sarah Orne Jewett; to D. Appleton & Co. for a large number of Bryant's poems: to Charles Scribner's Sons for two poems by Stevenson, from Underwoods, and A Child's Garden of Verses; to J. B. Lippincott & Co. for two poems by Thomas Buchanan Read; and to Henry T. Coates & Co. for a poem by Charles Fenno Hoffman.

The present volume is intended for the seventh, eighth, and ninth school years, or higher grammar grades. It is the third of three books prepared for use in the grades below the high school. As no collection of this size can supply as much poetry as may be used to advantage, and as many desirable poems by American writers have necessarily been omitted, we have noted at the end of this volume lists of poems which it would be well to add to the material given here, that our children may realize the scope and beauty of the poetry of their own land.

CONTENTS

PAGE
Abide with Me[72]
Adversity[92]
Annie Laurie[168]
Annie of Tharaw[199]
Antony's Eulogy on Cæsar[221]
Antiquity of Freedom, The[13]
Apparitions[253]
Auld Lang Syne[112]
Awakening of Spring, The[68]

Ballad of the Boat, The[119]
Bannockburn[52]
Before Sedan[109]
Beggar Maid, The[98]
Birkenhead, The[108]
"Blessed are They that Mourn"[151]
Bonnie Dundee[53]
Bonnie Lesley[167]
Boot and Saddle[231]
Building of the Ship, The[46]

Cavalier, The[230]
Consolation, A[261]
County Guy[96]
Crossing the Bar[269]
Cumnor Hall[27]

Deathbed, The[152]
Death the Leveler[60]
Deserted House, The[238]
Dora[160]
Downfall of Wolsey, The[177]

Each and All[172]
Elaine[248]
Elegy written in a Country Churchyard[184]
Evening (Milton)[212]
Evening (Scott)[97]

Faith[206]
Fall of Poland, The[181]
Flow Gently, Sweet Afton[196]
Forbearance[260]

Glenara[104]
Good Great Man, The[59]
Growing Old[253]

Harp that once through Tara's Halls, The[183]
Helvellyn[101]
Hervé Riel[141]
Hester[165]
High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire, The[17]
Home Thoughts from Abroad[69]
Horatius[31]
Hymn Before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni[214]
Hymn of Trust[159]
Hymn to Diana[101]
Hymn to the North Star,[211]

Ichabod[178]
Immortality[202]
In Heavenly Love abiding[245]
Ivry[136]

Jacobite's Epitaph, A[236]
Jacobite in Exile, A[232]
Jaffar[57]
John Anderson[113]

Knight's Tomb, The[103]

Lady of Shalott, The[76]
Last Leaf, The[239]
Last rose of Summer, The[15]
Light of Other Days, The[111]
Light shining out of Darkness, The[134]
Lochiel's Warning[61]
Lochinvar[50]
London, 1802[229]
Lord of Himself[58]
Lost Leader, The[180]
Lucy[192]

Man and Nature[74]
Man that hath no Music in Himself, The[91]
Morning[75]
My Doves[206]
My Love[254]

Neckan, The[116]
Night and Death[201]
Nora's Vow[255]

Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington[226]
Of Old sat Freedom[49]
O God, our Help in Ages Past[140]
Oh Fairest of the Rural Maids[195]
Oh, wert Thou in the Cauld Blast[260]
On First looking into Chapman's Homer[218]
On his Blindness[46]
On the Receipt of My Mother's Picture[241]
On the Sea[120]
Outlaw, The[257]
Ozymandias of Egypt[61]

Patriot, The[150]
Petition to Time, A[104]
Pillar of the Cloud, The[135]
Poet and the Bird, The[115]

Qua Cursum Ventus[210]
Quality of Mercy, The[30]
Quiet Work[213]

Raising of Lazarus, The[204]
Recessional[270]
Rhodora, The[174]
Romance of the Swan's Nest[82]
Rosabelle[24]
Rugby Chapel[147]

Safe Home[133]
St. Agnes' Eve[246]
Sands of Dee, The[16]
Say not, the Struggle Naught availeth[45]
Seven Sisters; or, the Solitude of Binnorie, The[106]
She walks in Beauty[99]
She was a Phantom of Delight[200]
Sir Galahad[249]
Sleep[156]
Sleep, The[153]
Snowstorm, The[67]
Song from "Pippa Passes,"[73]
Song of the Camp, A[169]
Song of the Western Men, The[56]
Song: "Who is Silvia? What is She?"[256]
Sonnet on Chillon[14]
Stanzas for Music[196]

Telling the Bees[86]
Thanksgiving to God for His House, A[157]
There'll Never be Peace[231]
Three Fishers, The[236]
To a Mountain Daisy[95]
To a Skylark (Shelley)[261]
To a Skylark (Wordsworth)[26]
To the Daisy[92]
Triumph of Charis[198]
True Knighthood[252]
Twilight Calm[70]

Ulysses[218]

Village Preacher, The[190]

Waterloo[266]
Wendell Phillips[149]
Where lies the Land to which the Ship would go[114]
White Ship, The[121]