From his Oxford time he was known as a writer of excellent verse. With the exception of the parodies entitled "Green Bays" (1893), his poetical work is contained in "Poems and Ballads" (1896). In 1895 he published an anthology from the 16th- and 17th-century English lyricists, "The Golden Pomp", followed in 1900 by the "Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250–1900". Later editions of this extended the period of concern to 1918 and it remained the leading general anthology of English verse until Helen Gardner's "New Oxford Book of English Verse" appeared in 1972.