It has often been said that love, both sacred and profane, is the only true
subject of the lyric poem. Nothing better justifies this claim than the splendid
poems in this volume, which range from the writings of ancient China to those of
modern-day America and represent, at its most piercing, a universal experience
of the human soul.Includes poems by John Donne, Christina Rossetti, W. H. Auden,
Edna St. Vincent Millay, Robert Graves, e. e. cummings, Dorothy Parker, William
Shakespeare, Sappho, Bhartrhari, Anna Akhmatova, and W. B. Yeats, among many
others.