While the special student of poetry may read the entire work of a poet, weigh each poem, and select judiciously those which he will reread and finally make a part of his inner circle of friends, the general reader must depend upon the selection of some one else to some extent, or at least he will read first those recommended to him, afterward dipping casually into others in the hope that he will find one he will wish to study more carefully. Such a selection, and one of the best ever made, is Matthew Arnold’s selection from the poems of Wordsworth. But even Matthew Arnold does not tell you what poem of Wordsworth’s to begin with. Another admirable selection of the “best poems” is Palgrave’s “Golden Treasury.” Yet even in that most lovers of poetry will miss many that have been excluded because they are not lyric, or because they are too long, or for some other reason which is not an essential one with the reader. Other selecters of poems have not been so fortunate, and when one can have a tolerably complete edition of a poet in his library, he will wish to make his own selection with the aid of such adviser as he may choose. One of the easiest poets to begin with is Longfellow. We have already read the Psalm of Life. Let us read it again, and yet again. Longfellow very aptly describes himself as a poet in that beautiful song of his “The Day is Done.” Come, read to me some poem, Some simple and heartfelt lay, That shall sooth that restless feeling, And banish the thoughts of day. Not from the grand old masters, Not from the bards sublime, Whose distant footsteps echo Through the corridors of Time. For, like strains of martial music, Their mighty thoughts suggest Life’s endless toil and endeavour: And to-night I long for rest. Read from some humbler poet, Whose songs gushed from his heart, As rain from the clouds of summer, Or tears from the eyelids start. Who, through long days of labour, And nights devoid of ease, Still heard in his soul the music Of wonderful melodies. Such songs have power to quiet The restless pulse of care, And come like the benediction That follows after prayer. And there is no better way to enjoy poetry than to read it aloud: Then read from the treasured volume The poem of thy choice, And lend to the rhyme of the poet The beauty of thy voice. And the night shall be filled with music, And the cares that infest the day Shall fold their tents like the Arabs, And as silently steal away.