The Book of Ballads: Eleventh Edition, 1870

How it begins

[This and the five following Poems were among those forwarded to the Home Secretary, by "the unsuccessful competitors for the Laureateship, on its becoming vacant by the death of Southey. How they came into our possession is a matter between Sir James Graham and ourselves. The result of the contest could never have been doubtful, least of all to the great poet who then succeeded to the bays. His own sonnet on the subject is full of the serene consciousness of superiority, which does not even admit the idea of rivalry, far less of defeat.