Page:MU KPB 009 The Springtide of Life Poems of Childhood by Algernon Charles Swinburne.pdf/14

 address, and I have rearranged them all in some rough chronological order, beginning with the songs of birth and proceeding to those which celebrate the maturity of nine years. I supplement the whole with the impassioned cycle of poems called “A Dark Month.”

One reason why Swinburne never brought out such a collection was his failure to find an artist who could interpret to his satisfaction the simplicity and freshness of his verses. We are fortunate in having secured, in Mr. Arthur Rackham, one whose delicate and romantic fancy is in sensitive harmony with Swinburne’s, and who understands, no less than he did, how “Heaven lies about us in our infancy.” EDMUND GOSSE