Rhyme and Reason [antikvár]

Editors Note This anthology is intended for readers of fifteen upwards. Some "easy" poems have been included to help those to whom poetry is unfamiliar ground, and there are some more difficult poems to challenge practised readers. It is hoped that the book may thus provide a ladder of interest. For readers without access to reference books fairly full notes are given on the harder poems. In general the notes are factual. Occasionally they raise questions of judgment; such notes, and especially the Introduction, are designed as a basis for discussion. Accordingly some more difficult ideas have been propounded than would otherwise have been put before young readers. Naturally the poems are not all of equal value, and a few have been included to provoke discussion, but we hope that even the minor poems have some merit and will not need to be rejected in the course of time. Spelling has been modernised. This involves some loss, but archaic spelling creates quite excessive difficulties for non-specialist readers. (As a result many may grow up without having read anything by at least one major figure of our literature.) Titles given in quotation marks are those supplied by the editors. 12