SELECTIONS FROM FIVE ENGLISH POETS EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY MARY E. LITCHFIELD 1902 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION I. DRYDEN A SONG FOR ST. CECILIA'S DAY II. GRAY ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD III. GOLDSMITH THE TRAVELLER THE DESERTED VILLAGE IV. BURNS THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT V. COLERIDGE THE ANCIENT MARINER INTRODUCTION When a poem is read aloud it is easy to realize that poetry is closely related to music. Like music it awakens vague, mysterious feelings which cannot be expressed in ordinary speech; and the person who fails to catch the subtle melody of a poem gets but little from it even though he understands perfectly the meaning of the words. To illustrate this, put into commonplace prose a passage of beautiful verse,--for instance, lines 358-372 of _The Ancient Mariner_, beginning, "Sometimes a-dropping from the sky,"--and then compare the prose version with the original. The two will be found as unlike as the flower after it has been dissected by the botanist, and the same flower still on the stalk, opening its petals to the morning sun. The Greeks divided all poetry into three kinds,--lyric, epic, and dramatic poetry, and there is no better general division. The lyric, which is properly a song, expresses the transient feeling or mood of the writer, and therefore is never very long. One must be sensitive to the music of verse to care for a poem of this kind, because it tells no story. Dryden's _Song for St. Cecilia's Day_ and Gray's _Elegy_, both included in the present volume, are lyrics. Among the most beautiful of English lyrics are Milton's _Lycidas_, Wordsworth's _Ode on Intimations of Immortality_, and Shelley's _To a Skylark_ and _Adonais_; while of American poems of the same kind none is nobler than Lowell's _Commemoration Ode_. Short lyrics, among which are songs and sonnets, can be found in the works of almost every poet of note, whether English or American. Under the head of epic or narrative poetry are included long productions like the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ of Homer and the _Paradise Lost_ of Milton, and shorter poems, such as Coleridge's _Ancient Mariner_ and _Longfellow's _Evangeline_. Indeed, every piece of verse that tells a story, however short it may be, belongs with the epics or narratives. Dramatic poetry includes well-known plays like Shakespeare's _Merchant of Venice_ and _Julius Caesar_, and also certain poems not written for the stage, such as Browning's _Pippa Passes_ and Shelley's _Prometheus Unbound_. In a dramatic production the poet goes out of himself for the time being, and expresses the thoughts and feelings of other characters.