From the publisher:
A choice introduction to heroic poetry for English readers. This wide-ranging collection of poems is designed to stir the imagination and inspire lofty thoughts in those approaching maturity. As Henley states in the preface, his ambition is "to set forth the beauty and the joy of living, the beauty and blessedness of death, the glory of battle and adventure, the nobility of devotion - to a cause, an ideal, a passion even - the dignity of resistance, the sacred quality of patriotism." The compiler gives first place to "Agincourt" by Shakespeare, thinking "that a book of heroism could have no better starting-point than that heroic pair of names," and closes with "The Flag of England" by Kipling, fitting bookends for this fine anthology. In between are 124 other poems by 57 other poets with only Milton, Burns, Wordsworth, Scott, Byron, Macaulay, Longfellow, Whitman, Arnold, and Swinburne represented by three or more poems. The poems of each poet are grouped together, with ordering of poets by birthdate. A section of ballads is included, as a transition between the older poets and the newer ones.
Table of Contents:
William Shakespeare and Michael Drayton
1. Agincourt
Sir Henry Wotton
2. Lord of Himself
Ben Jonson
3. True Balm
4. Honour In Bud
John Fletcher
5. The Joy of Battle
Francis Beaumont
6. In Westminster Abbey
Robert Herrick
7. Going A-Maying
8. To Anthea, Who May Command Him Anything
George Herbert
9. Memento Mori
James Shirley
10. The King of Kings
John Milton
11. Lycidas
12. Arms and the Muse
13. To the Lord General
14. The Late Massacre
15. On His Blindness
16. Eyeless at Gaza
17. Out of Adversity
James Graham, Marquis of Montrose
18. Heroic Love
Richard Lovelace
19. Going to the Wars
20. From Prison
Andrew Marvell
21. Two Kings
22. In Exile
John Dryden
23. Alexander's Feast
Samuel Johnson
24. The Quiet Life
Ballads
25. Chevy Chace
26. Sir Patrick Spens
27. Brave Lord Willoughby
28. Hughie the Græme
29. Kinmont Willie
30. The Honour of Bristol
31. Helen of Kirkconnell
32. The Twa Corbies
Thomas Gray
33. The Bard
William Cowper
34. The Royal George
35. Boadicea
Graham of Gartmore
36. To His Lady
Charles Dibdin
37. Constancy
38. The Perfect Sailor
John Philpot Curran
39. The Deserter
Prince Hoare
40. The Arethusa
William Blake
41. The Beauty of Terror
Robert Burns
42. Defiance
43. The Goal of Life
44. Before Parting
45. Devotion
46. True Until Death
William Wordsworth
47. Venice
48. Destiny
49. The Mother Land
50. Ideal
51. To Duty
52. Two Victories
Sir Walter Scott
53. In Memoriam
54. Lochinvar
55. Flodden
56. The Chase
57. The Outlaw
58. Pibroch
59. The Omnipotent
60. The Red Harlaw
61. Farewell
62. Bonny Dundee
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
63. Romance
Walter Savage Landor
64. Sacrifice
Thomas Campbell
65. Soldier And Sailor
66. ‘Ye Mariners’
67. The Battle of the Baltic
Ebenezer Elliott
68. Battle Song
Allan Cunningham
69. Loyality
70. A Sea-Song
Bryant Waller Procter
71. A Song of the Sea
George Gordon, Lord Byron
72. Sennacherib
73. The Storming of Corinth
74. Alhama
75. Friendship
76. The Race with Death
77. The Glory that was Greece
78. Hail and Farewell
Charles Wolfe
79. After Coruna
Frederick Marryat
80. The Old Navy
Felicia Hemans
81. Casabianca
82. The Pilgrim Fathers
John Keats
83. To the Adventures
Thomas Babington, Lord Macaulay
84. Horatius
85. The Armada
86. The Last Buccaneer
87. A Jacobite's Epitaph
Robert Stephen Hawker
88. The Song of the Western Men
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
89. The Building of the Ship
90. The Discoverer of the North Cape
91. The Cumberland
92. A Dutch Picture
John Greenleaf Whittier
93. Barbara Frietchie
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
94. A Ballad of the Fleet
95. The Heavy Brigade
Sir Francis Hastings Doyle
96. The Private of the Buffs
97. The Red Thread of Honour
Robert Browning
98. Home Thoughts from the Sea
99. Hervé Riel
Walt Whitman
100. The Dying Fireman
101. A Sea-Fight
102. Beat! Beat! Drums!
103. Two Veterans
Charles Kingsley
104. The Pleasant Isle of Avès
105. A Welcome
Sir Henry Yule
106. The Birkenhead
Matthew Arnold
107. Apollo
108. The Death of Sohrab
109. Flee Fro’ the Press
William Cory
110. School Fencibles
111. The Two Captains
George Meredith
112. The Head of Bran
William Morris
113. The Slaying of the Niblungs
Alfred Austin
114. Is Life Worth Living?
Sir Alfred Lyall
115. Theology in Extremis
Algernon Charles Swinburne
116. The Oblation
117. England
118. The Jacobite in Exile
Bret Harte
119. The Reveillé
120. What the Bullet Sang
Austin Dobson
121. A Ballad of the Armada
Andrew Lang
122. The White Pacha
Robert Louis Stevenson
123. Mother and Son
Henry Charles Beeching
124. Prayers
Rudyard Kipling
125. A Ballad of East and West
126. The Flag of England
