# The Hundred Best Poems (lyrical) in the English language - second series

THE HUNDRED BEST POEMS.
SECOND SERIES.
THE HUNDRED BEST POEMS
(LYRICAL)
IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
SECOND SERIES.
THE
HUNDRED BEST POEMS
(LYRICAL)
IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
SECOND SERIES
Selected by
ADAM L. GOWANS, M.A.
Glasgow: GOWANS & GRAY, LTD.
London: R. BRIMLEY JOHNSON
1904
To John G. Stewart
PREFATORY NOTE.
I have been deeply gratified by the large circulation which the first series of 'Hundred Best Poems (Lyrical)' has already attained in less than twelve months from its publication, and am confident, from the many letters of thanks and appreciation which have reached me, that the present series is already assured of a warm welcome.
This second collection, while not containing such supremely great lyrics of the language as does the first, draws its riches, nevertheless, from a treasure-house which is still very far from being exhausted, and will, I believe, prove as interesting to lovers of the best poetry as the other; giving prominence, as it does, to many splendid poems, which, to some extent because of the operation of the law of copyright, are not yet as universally familiar as they will, I believe, in time become. ​In this volume, as in its predecessor, I have not included poems by living authors. With regard to texts, titles, etc. I have gone on the same principles as before.
I have again to acknowledge with deep gratitude the kindness of many publishers and editors. Messrs Macmillan & Co., Ltd., in particular, have allowed me to reprint Matthew Arnold's 'The Last Word' and Christina Rossetti's 'A Royal Princess,' while I am indebted to Messrs. Chatto & Windus for permission to include a famous stanza from Stevenson's 'Songs of Travel,' and to Messrs. Ellis & Elvey for the same privilege in respect to D. G. Rossetti's 'Sudden Light.' Everyone who knows these four poems, or makes his first acquaintance with them now, will realize their great importance to the volume. I must also thank the following gentlemen who have allowed me to use copyright texts of non-copyright poems from editions published by then:—Messrs. Chatto & Windus (Sidney), Mr. Buxton Forman (Keats and Shelley), Mr Henry Frowde (Wordsworth), Messrs. T. C. & E. C. Jack (Burns), ​Messrs. Macmillan & Co., Ltd. (Arnold, Christina Rossetti, Shakespeare, and Tennyson), Mr. John Murray (Byron), Messrs Smith, Elder & Co. (Browning), Messrs. Ward, Lock & Co., Ltd. (Coleridge).
A.L.G.
CONTENTS.
| | | | PAGE |
| 1. | Arnold (1822–1888), | Consolation, | 1 |
| 2. | "" | The Last Word, | 4 |
| 3. | "" | The Buried Life, | 4 |
| 4. | "" | The Scholar-Gipsy, | 8 |
| 5. | Beaumont (1584–1616), | On the Tombs in Westminster, | 17 |
| 6. | Beaumont (1584–1616) and Fletcher (1579–1625), | Lay a garland on my hearse, | 18 |
| 7. | Browning, Mrs. (1806–1861), | A Musical Instrument, | 19 |
| 8. | Browning (1812–1889), | Heap cassia, sandal-buds, and stripes, | 20 |
| 9. | "" | Evelyn Hope, | 21 |
| 10. | "" | Home Thoughts, from Abroad, | 23 |
| 11. | "" | One Way of Love, | 24 |
| 12. | "" | In a Year, | 25 |
| 13. | Burns (1759–1796), | O, Wert Thou in the Cauld Blast, | 28 |
| 14. | "" | How Lang and Dreary is the Night, | 29 |
| 15. | "" | My Heart's in the Highlands, | 30 ​ |
| 16. | "" | Thou Lingering Star, | 31 |
| 17. | "" | The Blue-Eyed Lassie, | 31 |
| 18. | "" | Bonnie Wee Thing, | 33 |
| 19. | "" | Sweet Afton, | 34 |
| 20. | "" | Out over the Forth, | 35 |
| 21. | Byron (1788–1824), | And Thou art Dead, as Young and Fair, | 36 |
| 22. | "" | Bright be the place of thy soul, | 38 |
| 23. | Campbell (1777–1844), | The Soldier's Dream, | 39 |
| 24. | "" | A Thought Suggested by the New Year, | 40 |
| 25. | Carew (c.1589–1639), | Disdain Returned, | 41 |
| 26. | "" | Ask me no more where Jove bestows, | 42 |
| 27. | Coleridge (1772–1834), | Kubla Khan, | 43 |
| 28. | "" | The Pains of Sleep, | 46 |
| 29. | Cowley (1618–1667), | The Wish, | 48 |
| 30. | Cowper (1731–1800), | On the Loss of the Royal George, | 50 |
| 31. | Drayton (1563–1631), | Since there's no help, | 51 |
| 32. | Dryden (1631–1700), | Alexander's Feast, | 52 |
| 33. | Goldsmith (1728–1774), | Stanzas on Woman, | 58 |
| 34. | Herrick (1591–1674), | To Dianeme, | 59 |
| 35. | "" | To Blossoms, | 59 |
| 36. | Jonson (1573–1637), | Queen and Huntress, chaste and fair, | 60 ​ |
| 37. | "" | Still to be neat, still to be drest, | 61 |
| 38. | Keats (1795–1821), | Ode to Psyche, | 61 |
| 39. | "" | Fragment of an Ode to Maia, | 63 |
| 40. | "" | Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art, | 64 |
| 41. | Landor (1775–1864), | Epitaph, | 65 |
| 42. | Lovelace (1618–1658), | To Althea, from Prison, | 65 |
| 43. | Marlowe (1564–1593), | The Passionate Shepherd to his Love, | 66 |
| 44. | Milton (1608–1674), | On the late Massacre in Piemont, | 67 |
| 45. | Moore (1779–1852), | O! breathe not his name, | 68 |
| 46. | "" | Rich and rare were the gems she wore, | 68 |
| 47. | Rossetti, Miss (1830–1894), | A Royal Princess, | 70 |
| 48. | "" | When I am dead, my dearest, | 77 |
| 49. | "" | Remember, | 77 |
| 50. | Rosetti (1828–1882), | Sudden Light, | 78 |
| 51. | Scott (1771–1832), | Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'ver, | 79 |
| 52. | "" | Jock of Hazeldean, | 80 |
| 53. | "" | Sound, sound the clarion, | 81 |
| 54. | "" | And you shall deal the funeral dole, | 81 ​ |
| 55. | "" | The tears I shed must ever fall, | 82 |
| 56. | Shakespeare (1564-1616), | Where the bee sucks, there suck I, | 83 |
| 57. | "" | Blow, blow, thou winter wind, | 83 |
| 58. | "" | O, mistress mine, where are you roaming, | 84 |
| 59. | "" | If thou survive my well-contented day, | 84 |
| 60. | Shelley (1792-1822), | Ozymandias, | 85 |
| 61. | "" | Life of Life! thy lips enkindle, | 85 |
| 62. | "" | A widow bird sate mourning for her love, | 86 |
| 63. | "" | Love's Philosophy, | 87 |
| 64. | "" | Hymn of Pan, | 87 |
| 65. | "" | Song of Proserpine, | 89 |
| 66. | "" | To the Moon, | 89 |
| 67. | "" | Time, | 90 |
| 68. | "" | To ——, | 90 |
| 69. | "" | Rarely, rarely, comest thou, | 90 |
| 70. | "" | A Lament, | 92 |
| 71. | "" | To Jane—The Invitation, | 93 |
| 72. | Sidney (1554-1586), | The Moon, | 95 ​ |
| 73. | Stevenson (1850-1894), | I have trod the upward and the downward slope, | 96 |
| 74. | Tennyson (1809-1892), | Choric Song, from "The Lotus Eaters", | 96 |
| 75. | "" | A Dream of Fair Women, | 102 |
| 76. | "" | Sir Galahad, | 113 |
| 77. | "" | Move eastward, happy earth, and leave, | 115 |
| 78. | "" | Come not, when I am dead, | 116 |
| 79. | "" | The Poet's Song, | 116 |
| 80. | "" | The splendour falls on castle walls, | 117 |
| 81. | "" | O Swallow, Swallow, | 118 |
| 82. | "" | Thy voice is heard thro' rolling drums, | 119 |
| 83. | "" | Home they brought her warrior dead, | 119 |
| 84. | "" | Ask me no more, | 120 |
| 85. | "" | Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington, | 121 |
| 86. | Waller (1606-1687), | On His Divine Poems, | 130 |
| 87. | Webster (15??-1630?), | Call for the robin-red-breast, | 131 |
| 88. | Wordsworth (1770-1850), | My heart leaps up when I behold, | 131 |
| 89. | "" | To the Cuckoo, | 131 ​ |
| 90. | "" | Three years she grew in sun and shower, | 133 |
| 91. | "" | A slumber did my spirit seal, | 134 |
| 92. | "" | I wandered lonely as a cloud, | 134 |
| 93. | "" | Nuns fret not, | 135 |
| 94. | "" | It is a beauteous evening, | 136 |
| 95. | "" | Yarrow Unvisited, | 136 |
| 96. | "" | Yarrow Visited, | 139 |
| 97. | "" | On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic, | 142 |
| 98. | "" | London, 1802, | 142 |
| 99. | "" | Most sweet it is, | 143 |
| 100. | "" | Lines Written in Early Spring, | 143 |
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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