The Home Book of Verse — Volume 1

This is a poetry anthology designed to live on a bedside table, not a shelf. Compiled by Burton Egbert Stevenson in the early 20th century, The Home Book of Verse gathers centuries of English and American verse into a single volume meant for daily reading, not scholarly reference. The collection moves from the simplest nursery rhymes to profound meditations on mortality, love, and the turning seasons. Here you will find Keats on the human condition alongside anonymous folk verses, Matthias Barr's tender 'Only A Baby Small' alongside weightier offerings from the canon. What distinguishes this anthology is its warmth: Stevenson was not assembling a textbook but a companion, poems to mark the days of a life. For modern readers, it offers both comfort and discovery, the familiar alongside the forgotten, all curated with an ear for what endures.