the story itself, was freely utilized by Tenny-
son in his English Idylls such as "Audley
Court," "Edwin Morris," "Love and Duty,"
and "The Golden Year." It adds the last
touch of poignancy to Robert Frost's "Death
of the Hired Man." These descriptive pas-
sages, though lacking the song form, are as
purely lyrical in their function as the songs
in The Princess or the songs in The Winter's
Tale.

While the scope of the present volume, as
explained in the Preface, precludes any spe-
cific study of drama and epic, the reader must
bear in mind that the three main types of
poetry are not separated, in actual practice,
by immovably hard and fast lines. Pigeon-
hole classifications of drama, epic and lyric
types are highly convenient to the student
for purposes of analysis. But the moment one
reads a ballad like "Edward, Edward" ( Ox-
ford, No. 373) or "Helen of Kirconnell"
(Oxford, No. 387) the pigeon-hole distinctions
must be subordinated to the actual fact that
these ballads are a blend of drama, story and
song. The "form" is lyrical, the stuff is nar-

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