PRIMAVERA: POEMS BY FOUR AUTHORS PORTLAND MAINE PUBLISHED BY THOMAS B MOSHER AT XLV EXCHANGE STREET MDCCCC [vi] [vi] PREFACE Primavera: Poems, by Four Authors. Oxford: Published by B. H. Blackwell, Broad Street. MDCCCXC. (Fcap 8vo, pp. 43.) Such is the title of a little 'book of verses' that at the time found favour in the eyes of a few discerning critics, and then, apparently, was forgotten. As originally issued its dark brown paper wrapper was adorned with a simple but effective woodcut design by Mr. Selwyn Image, which we have reproduced on our first half-title. Even more fortunate has been the discovery of a signed review in the pages of the Academy for August 9, 1890, by the late John Addington Symonds. As a preface nothing could be better. And in this connexion the lines which we prefix from Guarini are also singularly appropriate. For these songs of Youth are still worth while; they thrill and fill us as of yesterday with their haunting sense of vanished love, of 'Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips Bidding adieu.' [vii] [vii] PREFACE This little book was written by four friends, three of them under-graduates at Oxford, and all of them penetrated with the spirit of the higher culture of our time. The poems, it is clear, have been carefully selected; and, it is probable, have been diligently polished. There is not one which is not remarkable for delicacy of style and conscious aiming after excellence in art. Whether these qualities promise well for future achievement and development is a question open to debate. But there can be no doubt that in Primavera we possess another of those tiny verse-books like Ionica, or Mr. Percy Pinkerton's Galeazzo, which will not lose
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