This collection of poems was made primarily for children from six to twelve years of age; but inasmuch as the attraction of the best juvenile literature is by no means confined to the children themselves, I hope the volume will give pleasure to many a reader of mature years. The possible range of selection covers a span of about six centuries. Further back the words were so different from those we now use as to be like a foreign language. But little that is suitable for children has come down to us from even half as many years ago, except nursery jingles, and those make a volume by themselves. The first requisite of the poems admitted to these pages was that they should be interesting to the average intelligent child. Toleration is not enough. The poem capable of winning no more than that has been rejected, no matter what its graces of expression or form, or what its fame of authorship. The poems in this volume by Henry W. Longfellow, John G. Whittier, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Frank Dempster Sherman, Alice and Phoebe Carey, and Lucy Larcom are published by permission of, and by arrangement with, Houghton Mifflin Company, the authorized publishers of their works. Kindly permission has also been granted by the authors to use the selections from the writings of Mrs. Emily Huntington Miller, Miss Augusta Lamed, Miss Winifred Stoner and Mr. J. W. Foley; and acknowledgment is made to the Outlook and the Youth's Companion for the privilege of reprinting several poems which first appeared in their pages.