Andrew Macphail, comp. The Book of Sorrow. 1916.
Preface
THIS Book of Verse contains all that has been said, all, indeed, that can be said upon the theme of Sorrow. For many civil years it was a melancholy pleasure assembling these pieces and placing them in order. Now, there is ample warrant for completing the task and offering as a comfort to other hearts what in the outset was designed for private luxury. The book demands little by way of preface save an expression of thanks to all who have so freely exposed their treasures for my selection. Nothing has been reserved except one lovely sonnet and certain translations from a very foreign tongue. This last omission I have endeavoured to supply. For the imperfect rhyme and for any other imperfection in this book I put forward as a reason, and offer as excuse, the place of my present abode and the nature of my employment.
In particular, I have to acknowledge my indebtedness for leave to use copyright poems to the following: the Ruskin Trustees and their Publishers, George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., for the quatrain by Ruskin; Mrs. Austin (Alfred Austin); Mr. Maurice Baring; the Very Rev. the Dean of Norwich; Mr. Mackenzie Bell (A. C. Swinburne); Messrs. George Bell & Sons, Ltd. (Thomas Ashe and Coventry Patmore); Messrs. William Blackwood & Sons (George Eliot); Mrs. Bland and Messrs. Constable; Mr. Wilfrid Scawen Blunt; Mr. F. W. Bourdillon; Miss Boyd (Wm. Bell Scott); Mr. Robert Bridges; Messrs. Burns & Oates (Francis Thompson); Lady Victoria Buxton (the Hon. Roden Noel); Mr. Hall Caine; Mr. Bliss Carman; Messrs. Chatto & Windus (Arthur O’Shaughnessy and R. L. Stevenson); Mrs. Kitson Clark; Mrs. P. L. Deacon (Arthur O’Shaughnessy); Mr. Austin Dobson and Messrs. Kegan Paul; Mrs. Dowden (the late Edward Dowden); Messrs. Ellis (D. G. Rossetti); Messrs. Funk & Wagnalls Company and the representatives of Richard Realf; Mr. Edward Garnett (Dr. Garnett); Mr. H. J. Glaisher (George Barlow); Mr. Edmund Gosse; Messrs. Harper (one poem from The Bard of the Dimbovitza); Mrs. Henley (W. E. Henley); Mrs. Tynan Hinkson; Messrs. Houghton Mifflin Company (Arlo Bates, Ina Donna Coolbrith, John Hay, T. W. Higginson, Lucy Larcom, Emma Lazarus, E. M. Thomas); Mr. John H. Ingram (Oliver Madox Brown); Mr. Coulson Kernahan as representing the late P. B. Marston; Mr. Rudyard Kipling and Messrs. Methuen (for a poem from The Seven Seas); Mr. John Lane (Mr. R. Le Gallienne, Mr. Stephen Phillips, Mrs. Marriott Watson, Mr. William Watson, Mrs. Woods); Mrs. Lee-Hamilton (Eugene Lee-Hamilton); Major Sir Bryan B. M. Leighton (Lord De Tabley); Mrs. D. Pinto Leite (R. D. Blackmore); Messrs. Little, Brown & Co. (J. Chadwick and Louise Chandler Moulton); Messrs. Longmans, Green & Co. (Andrew Lang, Ballades and Rhymes and Ballades and Lyrics of Old France); Messrs. Longmans and the Morris Trustees (William Morris, Poems by the Way); Mr. W. P. McKenzie; Messrs. Macmillan & Co., Ltd. (T. E. Brown, F. Locker-Lampson, Christina Rossetti, Alma Strettell); Mr. John Masefield; Messrs. Maunsell (J. M. Synge); Messrs. Methuen (Mr. Rudyard Kipling, Oscar Wilde); Mr. Lloyd Mifflin; Sir Henry Newbolt (Poems New and Old, John Murray); Mr. Bowyer Nichols; Sir Gilbert Parker; Mr. D. Noel Paton; the late Mr. Stephen Phillips; G. P. Putnam’s Sons; Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch; Mr. Arthur R. Ropes; The Saturday Review (Beatrice Cregan); Mr. Duncan Campbell Scott (his own poem and those of the late Archibald Lampman); the Walter Scott Publishing Co. (Warburton Pike, A. R. Ropes); Messrs. Scribners (R. L. Stevenson); Sir Owen Seaman and the Proprietors of Punch; Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co. (Robert Bridges, Hon. Mrs. O. N. Knox, J. A. Symonds); Mrs. A. C. Steele and the Editor of the Spectator; Mr. Arthur Symons (his own poem and that of Miss Mathilde Blind); Mr. E. W. Thomson; The Editor of The Times (Mr. Maurice Baring, Mrs. Kitson Clark, Mr. Bowyer Nichols); The Editor of The University Magazine; Messrs. T. Fisher Unwin, Ltd. (Poems and Songs, Richard Middleton); Mr. William Watson; Mr. William Winter; Mrs. Woods (her own poem and that of William Philpot).