Page:A Treasury of South African Poetry.djvu/21



make a selection of the best and most familiar poetry any country has produced is, I conceive, a desirable as well as pleasing object; and to make a selection of the verse—in many cases very scattered—of a young country, which has hitherto produced no really great poet, and whose poetry in many cases has not extended beyond mediocrity, is, I think, not only desirable but essential. The present volume is therefore an attempt to collect and arrange such. The object has been to make a selection from a selection; in short, to give, as far as material would allow, true and faithful specimens of the best which our poetical writers have hitherto given us. Such a selection—which, I trust, will merit the name of a "Treasury"—does, I hope, no injustice to the authors who have already published their poems in book form; on the contrary, I hope that it may tend to popularize their works still more, by directing more attention to them, and thereby stimulating a desire to possess complete editions. It also fulfils the useful purpose of saving perhaps from oblivion some gem or worthy song which would otherwise lie forgotten in dry-as-dust pages of old Cape magazines or journals. xv