[1] Namely, The Riches of the Poor, An Offer of Friendship, An Exhortation to Davie, Poets for ever! and The Bards of Ayr. A book of selections being in its nature an anthology, in which all the contents are there upon their individual merits as poetry, it seems right that each should have a title that carries some reference to its subject-matter. I have ventured upon this innovation in one or two other cases, with results which, I hope, will commend themselves to the judicious.

And here a word may be said about the arrangement of the contents, which is not chronological, yet anything but haphazard. The intention has rather been to make it lyrical and vital. I conceive that a collection like this, which is virtually an anthology gathered from the domain of a single poet, should as nearly as possible be itself a poem. That is, it should be so composed, so put together, that the reader may pass from number to number in the sequence as easily and naturally as he would pass from verse to verse of a single poem: even more easily and naturally, perhaps, from a continually renewed sense of refreshment, of slightly changed animation. But this effect is not to be achieved without taking pains. An editor who aims at it must be keenly and even anxiously observant of many values—of values constituted by metrical quality, subject matter, moral mood and so forth—in all the varieties of each and in their interactions. He must try to maintain continuity (the continuity of unflagging animation, interest and enjoyment in the act of reading) through variety and relief, and even through the occasional sudden contrast which may express either a natural reaction and subsidence of mood, or an impetus of the poetic soul in fresh directions. Finally, while disregarding the mere time-order of composition (since the poem which best speaks the truth for a man’s forty-sixth year may well have been written at twenty-one) he must yet try to suggest something of the tone of the poet’s different life-periods, and these in their right order. If the attempt is at all successful, the resulting arrangement should not only do justice to each individual poem by a sympathetic setting, but should compass a general effect of unity and of personality. How far the series from There was a Lad to Auld Lang Syne realises this ideal it is not for me to say. Other things besides the ideal had claims to be considered, such as the proposed scope of the book and the need to distribute the illustrations reasonably through the volume. But I may say that from point to point it has only been after many re-readings and searching comparisons that I have finally decided whether this or this or this poem would most happily and economically follow that one; regard being also had to others that were yet to come. Felicity in the metrical transition was, it will be seen, the value predominantly considered in the earlier pages, while towards the close (I speak of the Songs and Lyrics section) there has been more conscious grouping of poems reinforcing one another in the expression or suggestion of a mood or colour-tone of the mind. I say predominantly; for both principles of arrangement, as well as those of relief and contrast, have been used throughout. Thus Lassie wi’ the Lint-White Locks, The Posie, My Lady’s Gown, and The Daisy (pp. 41-4) have an element in common—a certain refinement and gentleness of feeling—which brings them within the same moral key, diverse as they are. They breathe of flowers, independently of speaking of them. But naturally the principle of grouping has been more particularly used to suggest what I have called the colour-tone of the poet’s mind at certain stages of his life, especially the later ones. And I permit myself to hope that the more the reader knows (understandingly) of Burns, the more will he find of what is essential and quintessential to any true account of the poet’s later days suggested or recalled by the successive groupings with which our first and main section draws to a close.