INTRODUCTION

The title and opening of a poem often contain a kernel of the whole. Not so much because they summarize, as they often do, its subject matter, but because they are devised so as to anchor the wandering wits of the reader. They sound strong music, fly arresting colours, array their wares in a full light, make quick promises. There is Sidney’s sonnet:

My true love hath my heart and I have his;

there is Wordsworth’s ode on Intimations of Immortality From Recollections of Early Childhood:

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The earth, and every common sight, To me did seem Apparelled in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream;

there is Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard: The Curfew tolls the knell of parting day.