This keepsake gift volume ranges from the twelfth century B.C. to modern times to present an international sampling of the world's best short poems. The works of ancient Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Persian poets appear alongside those of Arabic, Chinese, German, Indian, Japanese, and Hungarian authors, in addition to classics by English, Irish, and American writers.
Featured poems include those of Pushkin ("I Loved You"), Yeats ("Down by the Salley Gardens"), Jonson ("On My First Daughter"), Hughes ("The Negro Speaks of Rivers"), Basho ("The Quiet Pond"), Bhasa ("The Moon"), and Tsvetaeva ("I do not think, or argue, or complain"). Additional selections include verse by Li Po, Sappho, Paz, Shakespeare, Dickinson, Blake, Campion, H.D., Heine, Frost, Lermontov, Swift, Rilke, and many others.