THE MOST POPULAR ENGLISH POEMS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 289, 6 December 1930, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE MOST POPULAR ENGLISH POEMS.

Here is an interesting but rather exasperating little anthology of English verse. In compiling "The Poet's Corner," or "The Hundred Most Popular English Poeme," Mr. I. M. Parsons Bays his object has been to discover "those poems which can most truly be regarded as forming the core of taste in English verse." Selection has been governed "not by personal preference but by numerical calculation," and in no case has the-selector been influenced by merit. But Mr. Parsons does not let us know how he made this calculation, which is disappointing.. We presume that he consulted reading books and anthologies. On this basis some of his choices are surprising. There is only one of Milton's—the sonnet on his blindness. One would think that "L'Allegro," "II Penseroso" and "Lycidas" were,more popular. A number of poems are included that are not great, such as "The Village Blacksmith," "Casabianca" and "'John Gilpin," which, of course, should r.ot surprise, but in company with them are many first-class pieces. In numbers Shakespeare is first with twelve, and Tennyson second with ten. Nearly all the Tennyson belongs to his best work, but "The May Queen" almost rubs shoulders with "Tears, Idle Tears" and "Crossing the Bar." Campbell, a secondrater, has the same number as Browning, four, and Keats three. Newbolt, Yeats, Kipling, Rupert Brooke and Masefield are here, and John McCrae, the author of "In Flanders Fields." The pretty white and gold binding that Chatto and Windus give to this little book adds to its value in book-lovers' eyes.