Perhaps we might begin with such mere pretty rhythms as “Airy, Fairy Lilian” and “Claribel”; how much better than these shall we find “The Lady of Shallott,” “Break, Break, Break,” and all the songs in “The Princess.” “The Princess” itself is rather a tedious poem, certainly one which we would not care to read twice in succession; but the songs scattered through it are as nearly perfect as that sort of poetry well could be. “The May Queen” is a pretty and fascinating simple story that may touch us more deeply than we would own; and a poem of a different kind which might appeal particularly to our mood is “Locksley Hall,” following it with “Locksley Hall Twenty Years After,” which we may not like so well. Some will like to puzzle over the philosophy of “The Two Voices,” others the pretty story of “The Miller’s Daughter” or “The Talking Oak,” or the poetic “Ulysses” and “Lotus-Eaters,” while others will wish to pass on to “Maud” with its varied rhythms. In “Maud” there is one often quoted passage which may be all that one will care to reread--the passage beginning, “Come into the garden, Maud, For the black bat, night, has flown.” Nothing could be more perfectly and exquisitely rhythmical. And yet of all Tennyson’s poem, it is probably the shortest that we shall like best, such as “The Flower in the Crannied Wall” and “Crossing the Bar,” or such a stirring war poem as “Charge of the Light Brigade.” Nearly all of Tennyson’s poems that he has retained in his complete works are well written and worth reading once; but if you ever come to like the higher poets you will find his best thinking expressed there better, and will turn to Tennyson more and more for the swinging music of his shorter songs, with their mood-making rhythms and haunting images. And now let us turn to one of the great poets--to Browning. Most of us will be entirely unable to read the greater part of his poetry at all, and whether it is good or bad we must leave it to the critics to say. It will be best to buy him in a volume of selections, such as that he made himself from his own poems and published in two volumes. We may make our selection from that, though in other collections we may find other poems we shall like quite as much as any of these. First of all, let us say that it will probably take many days to learn to like even a few of Browning’s poems; but once we have learned to like them they will be dearer to us than all the other poets. We measure his greatness by the intensity of the liking we have for what we do like. Perhaps we have read “How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix” and found nothing very wonderful in it. If we ever come to love Browning, it will be because he was himself a lover, and we shall admire him because he was a fighter against the discouragements and littlenesses of the world.