with the poet, one's deed would perhaps have been easier to excuse, for
the public has been so often assured that anthologies are an economical
form of publication, and a time-saving form of predigested food, that it
usually does not stop to consider whether the material was worth
collecting in the first place. Gleaner after gleaner has worked in the
field of English literature, sorting and sifting, until almost the last
grain, husk, straw and thistle have been gathered and stored with their
kind. But instead of making an anthology, we have gone on the assumption
that something more than accidental identity of subject-matter holds
together the apparently desultory remarks of poets on the subject of the
poet's eyebrows, his taste in liquors, his addiction to midnight
rambles, and whatnot. We have followed a labyrinthine path through the
subject with faith that, if we were but patient in observing the clues,
we should finally emerge at a point of vantage on the other side of the
woods.

The primary grounds of this faith may have appeared to the skeptic
ridiculously inadequate. Our faith was based upon the fact that, more
than two thousand years ago, a serious accusation had been made against
poets, against which they had been challenged to defend themselves. This
led us to conclude that there must be unity of intention in poetry
dealing with the poet, for we believed that when English poets talked of
themselves and their craft, they were attempting to remove the stigma
placed upon the name of poet by Plato's charge.

Now it is easy for a doubter to object that many of the poems on the
subject show the poet, not arraying evidence for a trial, but leaning
over the brink of introspection in the attitude of Narcissus. One need
seek no farther than self-love, it may be suggested, to find the motive
for the poet's absorption in his reflection. Yet it is incontrovertible