  THE BABY IN THE LIBRARY.Edward D. Anderson. From 'Wide-Awake' for May, Within these solemn, book-lined walls, Did mortal ever see A critic so unprejudiced, So full of mirthful glee? Just watch her at that lower shelf: See, there she's thumped her nose Against the place where Webster stands In dignified repose. Such heavy books she scorns; and she Considers Vapereau, And Beeton, too, though full of life, Quite stupid, dull, and slow. She wants to take a higher flight, Aspiring little elf! And on her mother's arm at length She gains a higher shelf. With those grave, learnÈd men; Historians, and scientists, And even "Rare old Ben!" At times she takes a spiteful turn, And pommels, with her fists, De Quincey, Jeffrey, and Carlyle, And other essayists. And, when her wrath is fully roused, And she's disposed for strife, It almost looks as if she'd like To take Macaulay's 'Life.' Again, in sympathetic mood, She gayly smiles at Gay, And punches Punch, and frowns at Sterne In quite a dreadful way. In vain the Sermons shake their heads: She does not care for these; But catches, with intense delight, At all the Tales she sees. Where authors chance to meet her views, Just praise they never lack; To comfort and encourage them, She pats them on the back. MY BOOKS.Francis Bennoch. From the 'Storm and Other Poems.' I love my books as drinkers love their wine; The more I drink, the more they seem divine; With joy elate my soul in love runs o'er, And each fresh draught is sweeter than before. Books bring me friends where'er on earth I be,— Solace of solitude,—bonds of society! I love my books! they are companions dear, Sterling in worth, in friendship most sincere; Here talk I with the wise in ages gone, And with the nobly gifted of our own. If love, joy, laughter, sorrow please my mind, Love, joy, grief, laughter in my books I find. THE ART OF BOOK-KEEPING.Laman Blanchard. From his 'Poetical Works.' 1876. How hard, when those who do not wish To lend, that's lose, their books, Are snared by anglers—folks that fish With literary hooks; Who call and take some favorite tome, But never read it through,— They thus complete their set at home, By making one at you. Behold the bookshelf of a dunce Who borrows—never lends: Yon work, in twenty volumes, once Belonged to twenty friends. New tales and novels you may shut From view—'tis all in vain; They're gone—and though the leaves are "cut" They never "come again." For pamphlets lent I look around, For tracts my tears are spilt; But when they take a book that's bound, 'Tis surely extra-gilt. Is mine—my birds are flown; There's one odd volume left to be Like all the rest, a-lone. I, of my Spenser quite bereft, Last winter sore was shaken; Of Lamb I've but a quarter left, Nor could I save my Bacon. My Hall and Hill were levelled flat, But Moore was still the cry; And then, although I threw them Sprat, They swallowed up my Pye. O'er everything, however slight, They seized some airy trammel; They snatched my Hogg and Fox one night, And pocketed my Campbell. And then I saw my Crabbe at last, Like Hamlet's, backward go; And, as my tide was ebbing fast, Of course I lost my Rowe. I wondered into what balloon My books their course had bent; And yet, with all my marvelling, soon I found my Marvell went. Which makes me thus a talker; And once, while I was out of town, My Johnson proved a Walker. While studying o'er the fire one day My Hobbes amidst the smoke, They bore my Colman clean away, And carried off my Coke. They picked my Locke, to me far more Than Bramah's patent's worth; And now my losses I deplore Without a Home on earth. If once a book you let them lift, Another they conceal; For though I caught them stealing Swift, As swiftly went my Steele. Hope is not now upon my shelf, Where late he stood elated; But, what is strange, my Pope himself Is excommunicated. My little Suckling in the grave Is sunk to swell the ravage; And what 'twas Crusoe's fate to save 'Twas mine to lose—a Savage. My frozen hands upon; Though ever since I lost my Foote My Bunyan has been gone. My Hoyle with Cotton went; oppressed, My Taylor too must sail; To save my Goldsmith from arrest, In vain I offered Bayle. I Prior sought, but could not see The Hood so late in front; And when I turned to hunt for Lee, Oh! where was my Leigh Hunt. I tried to laugh, old Care to tickle, Yet could not Tickell touch; And then, alas! I missed my Mickle, And surely mickle's much. 'Tis quite enough my griefs to feed, My sorrows to excuse, To think I cannot read my Reid, Nor even use my Hughes. To West, to South, I turn my head, Exposed alike to odd jeers; For since my Roger Ascham's fled, I ask 'em for my Rogers. And thus my treasures flit; I feel, when I would Hazlitt view, The flames that it has lit. My word's worth little, Wordsworth gone, If I survive its doom; How many a bard I doated on Was swept off—with my Broome. My classics would not quiet lie, A thing so fondly hoped; Like Dr. Primrose, I may cry, "My Livy has eloped!" My life is wasting fast away— I suffer from these shocks; And though I've fixed a lock on Gray, There's gray upon my locks. I'm far from young—am growing pale— I see my Butter fly; And when they ask about my ail, 'Tis Burton! I reply. They still have made me slight returns, And thus my griefs divide; For oh! they've cured me of my Burns, And eased my Akenside. Nor let my anger burn; For as they never found me Gay, They have not left me Sterne. IN THE LIBRARY.Anne C. L. Botta. From her collected 'Poems.' 1882. Speak low—tread softly through these halls; Here genius lives enshrined,— Here reign, in silent majesty, The monarchs of the mind. A mighty spirit-host, they come From every age and clime; Above the buried wrecks of years They breast the tide of time. And in their presence-chamber here They hold their regal state, And round them throng a noble train, The gifted and the great. O child of earth, when round thy path The storms of life arise, And when thy brothers pass thee by With stern, unloving eyes,— Here shall the Poets chant for thee Their sweetest, loftiest lays; In wisdom's pleasant ways. Come, with these God-anointed kings Be thou companion here, And in the mighty realm of mind Thou shalt go forth a peer. MY SHAKSPERE.H. C. Bunner. Written expressly for this collection. With bevelled binding, with uncut edge, With broad white margin and gilded top, Fit for my library's choicest ledge, Fresh from the bindery, smelling of shop, In tinted cloth, with a strange design— Buskin and scroll-work and mask and crown, And an arabesque legend tumbling down— "The Works of Shakspere" were never so fine. Fresh from the shop! I turn the page— Its "ample margin" is wide and fair— Its type is chosen with daintiest care; There's a "New French Elzevir" strutting there That would shame its prototypic age. Fresh from the shop! O Shakspere mine, I've half a notion you're much too fine! There's an ancient volume that I recall, In foxy leather much chafed and worn; Its back is broken by many a fall, The stitches are loose and the leaves are torn; And gone is the bastard-title, next To the title-page scribbled with owners' names, That in straggling old-style type proclaims Left by the late Geo. Steevens, Esquire. The broad sky burns like a great blue fire, And the Lake shines blue as shimmering steel, And it cuts the horizon like a blade— But behind the poplar's a strip of shade— The great tall Lombardy on the lawn. And lying there in the grass, I feel The wind that blows from the Canada shore, And in cool, sweet puffs comes stealing o'er, Fresh as any October dawn. I lie on my breast in the grass, my feet Lifted boy-fashion, and swinging free, The old brown Shakspere in front of me. And big are my eyes, and my heart's a-beat; And my whole soul's lost—in what?—who knows? Perdita's charms or Perdita's woes— Perdita fairy-like, fair and sweet. Is any one jealous, I wonder, now, Of my love for Perdita? For I vow I loved her well. And who can say That life would be quite the same life to-day— That Love would mean so much, if she Had not taught me its A B C? The Grandmother, thin and bent and old, But her hair still dark and her eyes still bright, Totters around among her flowers— Old-fashioned flowers of pink and white; That feeds the blooms of her heart's delight. Ah me! for her and for me the hours Go by, and for her the smell of earth— And for me the breeze and a far love's birth, And the sun and the sky and all the things That a boy's heart hopes and a poet sings. Fresh from the shop! O Shakspere mine, It wasn't the binding made you divine! I knew you first in a foxy brown, In the old, old home, where I laid me down, In the idle summer afternoons, With you alone in the odorous grass, And set your thoughts to the wind's low tunes, And saw your children rise up and pass— And dreamed and dreamed of the things to be, Known only, I think, to you and me. I've hardly a heart for you dressed so fine— Fresh from the shop, O Shakspere mine! THE BOOKWORMS.Burns saw a splendidly bound but sadly CATULLUS TO HIS BOOK.QVOI DONO LEPIDVM NOVVM LIBELLVM. Caius Valerius Catullus. Translated by A. Lang expressly My little book, that's neat and new, Fresh polished with dry pumice stone, To whom, Cornelius, but to you, Shall this be sent, for you alone— (Who used to praise my lines, my own)— Have dared, in weighty volumes three, (What labors, Jove, what learning thine!) To tell the Tale of Italy, And all the legend of our line. So take, whate'er its worth may be, My Book,—but Lady and Queen of Song, This one kind gift I crave of thee, That it may live for ages long! OLD BOOKS ARE BEST.TO J. H. P. Old Books are best! With what delight Does "Faithorne fecit" greet our sight On frontispiece or title-page Of that old time, when on the stage "Sweet Nell" set "Rowley's" heart alight! And you, O Friend, to whom I write, Must not deny, e'en though you might, Through fear of modern pirate's rage, Old Books are best. What though the prints be not so bright, The paper dark, the binding slight? Our author, be he dull or sage, Returning from that distant age So lives again, we say of right: Old Books are best. THE FORGOTTEN BOOKS.Thomas S. Collier. Written expressly for this collection. Hid by the garret's dust, and lost Amid the cobwebs wreathed above, They lie, these volumes that have cost Such weeks of hope and waste of love. The Theologian's garnered lore Of Scripture text, and words divine; And verse, that to some fair one bore Thoughts that like fadeless stars would shine; The grand wrought epics, that were born From mighty throes of heart and brain,— Here rest, their covers all unworn, And all their pages free from stain. Here lie the chronicles that told Of man, and his heroic deeds— Alas! the words once "writ in gold" Are tarnished so that no one reads. And tracts that smote each other hard, While loud the friendly plaudits rang, Where old, moth-eaten garments hang. The heroes that were made to strut In tinsel on "life's mimic stage" Found, all too soon, the deepening rut Which kept them silent in the page; And heroines, whose loveless plight Should wake the sympathetic tear, In volumes sombre as the night Sleep on through each succeeding year. Here Phyllis languishes forlorn, And Strephon waits beside his flocks, And early huntsmen wind the horn, Within the boundaries of a box. Here, by the irony of fate, Beside the "peasant's humble board," The monarch "flaunts his robes of state," And spendthrifts find the miser's hoard. Days come and go, and still we write, And hope for some far happier lot Than that our work should meet this blight— And yet—some books must be forgot. AN INVOCATION IN A LIBRARY.Helen Gray Cone. From 'Oberon and Puck.' 1885. O brotherhood, with bay-crowned brows undaunted, Who passed serene along our crowded ways, Speak with us still! For we, like Saul, are haunted: Harp sullen spirits from these later days! Whate'er high hope ye had for man your brother, Breathe it, nor leave him, like a prisoned slave, To stare through bars upon a sight no other Than clouded skies that lighten on a grave. In these still alcoves give us gentle meeting, From dusky shelves kind arms about us fold, Till the New Age shall feel her cold heart beating Restfully on the warm heart of the Old: Till we shall hear your voices, mild and winning Steal through our doubt and discord, as outswells At fiercest noon, above a city's dinning, The chiming music of cathedral bells: And coarse confusions that around us lie, Up to the calm of high, cloud-silvered spaces, Where the tall spire points through the soundless sky. CONCERNING THE HONOR OF BOOKS.This sonnet, prefixed to the second edition Since honor from the honorer proceeds, How well do they deserve, that memorize And leave in books for all posterity The names of worthies and their virtuous deeds; When all their glory else, like water-weeds Without their element, presently dies, And all their greatness quite forgotten lies, And when and how they flourished no man heeds; How poor remembrances are statues, tombs, And other monuments that men erect To princes, which remain in closÈd rooms, Where but a few behold them, in respect Of books, that to the universal eye Show how they lived; the other where they lie! LINES.Isaac D'Israeli. Imitated from Rantzau, the founder Golden volumes! richest treasures! Objects of delicious pleasures! You my eyes rejoicing please, You my hands in rapture seize! Brilliant wits, and musing sages, Lights who beamed through many ages, Left to your conscious leaves their story, And dared to trust you with their glory; And now their hope of fame achieved! Dear volumes! you have not deceived! MY BOOKS.Austin Dobson. From 'At the Sign of the Lyre.' 1885. They dwell in the odor of camphor, They stand in a Sheraton shrine, They are "warranted early editions," These worshipful tomes of mine;— In their creamy "Oxford vellum," In their redolent "crushed Levant," With their delicate watered linings, They are jewels of price, I grant;— Blind-tooled and morocco-jointed, They have Bedford's daintiest dress, They are graceful, attenuate, polished, But they gather the dust, no less;— For the row that I prize is yonder, Away on the unglazed shelves, The bulged and the bruised octavos, The dear and the dumpy twelves,— Montaigne with his sheepskin blistered, And Howell the worse for wear, And the worm-drilled Jesuits' Horace, And the little old cropped MoliÈre,— And the Rabelais foxed and flea'd,— For the others I never have opened, But those are the ones I read. TO A MISSAL OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.Austin Dobson. From 'At the Sign of the Lyre.' 1885. Missal of the Gothic age, Missal with the blazoned page, Whence, O Missal, hither come, From what dim scriptorium? Whose the name that wrought thee thus, Ambrose or Theophilus, Bending, through the waning light, O'er thy vellum scraped and white; Weaving 'twixt thy rubric lines Sprays and leaves and quaint designs: Setting round thy border scrolled Buds of purple and of gold? Ah!—a wondering brotherhood, Doubtless, round that artist stood, Strewing o'er his careful ways Little choruses of praise; Glad when his deft hand would paint Strife of Sathanas and Saint, Jest of cloister humorist. Well the worker earned his wage, Bending o'er the blazoned page! Tired the hand and tired the wit Ere the final Explicit! Not as ours the books of old— Things that steam can stamp and fold; Not as ours the books of yore— Rows of type, and nothing more. Then a book was still a Book, Where a wistful man might look, Finding something through the whole, Beating—like a human soul. In that growth of day by day, When to labor was to pray, Surely something vital passed To the patient page at last; Something that one still perceives Vaguely present in the leaves; Something from the worker lent; Something mute—but eloquent! THE BOOK-PLATE'S PETITION.BY A GENTLEMAN OF THE TEMPLE. Austin Dobson. Published originally in 'Notes and While cynic Charles still trimm'd the vane 'Twixt Querouaille and Castlemaine, In days that shocked John Evelyn, My First Possessor fix'd me in. In days of Dutchmen and of frost, The narrow sea with James I crossed; Returning when once more began The Age of Saturn and of Anne. I am a part of all the past; I knew the Georges, first and last; I have been oft where else was none Save the great wig of Addison; And seen on shelves beneath me grope The little eager form of Pope. I lost the Third that own'd me when French Noailles fled at Dettingen; The year James Wolfe surpris'd Quebec, The Fourth in hunting broke his neck; The day that William Hogarth dy'd, The Fifth one found me in Cheapside. Whose Greek is sounder than their hose; He lov'd old books, and nappy ale, So liv'd at Streatham, next to Thrale. 'Twas there this stain of grease I boast Was made by Dr. Johnson's toast. (He did it, as I think, for spite; My Master called him Jacobite!) And now that I so long to-day Have rested post discrimina, Safe in the brass-wir'd book-case where I watched the Vicar's whit'ning hair Must I these travell'd bones inter In some Collector's sepulchre! Must I be torn from hence and thrown With frontispiece and colophon! With vagrant E's, and I's and O's, The spoil of plunder'd Folios! With scraps and snippets that to Me Are naught but kitchen company! Nay, rather, Friend, this favor grant me; Tear me at once; but don't transplant me. Cheltenham, OVER THE THRESHOLD OF MY LIBRARY.Quoted from the supplement of Dibdin's From mouldering Abbey's dark Scriptorium brought, See vellum tomes by Monkish labor wrought; Nor yet the comma born, Papyri see, And uncial letters' wizard grammary: View my fifteeners in their ragged line; What ink! What linen! Only known long syne— Entering where Aldus might have fixed his throne, Or Harry Stephens coveted his own. THE CHRYSALIS OF A BOOKWORM.Maurice F. Egan. From 'Songs and Sonnets.' 1885. I read, O friend, no pages of old lore, Which I loved well, and yet the flying days, That softly passed as wind through green spring ways And left a perfume, swift fly as of yore, Though in clear Plato's stream I look no more, Neither with Moschus sing Sicilian lays, Nor with bold Dante wander in amaze, Nor see our Will the Golden Age restore. I read a book to which old books are new, And new books old. A living book is mine— In age, three years: in it I read no lies— In it to myriad truths I find the clew— A tender, little child: but I divine Thoughts high as Dante's in its clear blue eyes. EPIGRAM.Evenus (the grammarian). Rendered into English by A. Lang Pest of the Muses, devourer of pages, in crannies hat lurkest, Fruits of the Muses to taint, labor of learning to spoil; Wherefore, O black-fleshed worm! wert thou born for the evil thou workest? Wherefore thine own foul form shap'st thou with envious toil? THE BIBLIOMANIA.Hic, inquis, veto quisquam fuit oletum. Pinge duos angues. Pers. Sat. i. l. 108. John Ferriar. "An Epistle to Richard Heber, Esq." What wild desires, what restless torments seize The hapless man, who feels the book-disease, If niggard Fortune cramp his gen'rous mind And Prudence quench the Spark by heaven assign'd! With wistful glance his aching eyes behold The Princeps-copy, clad in blue and gold, Where the tall Book-case, with partition thin, Displays, yet guards the tempting charms within: So great Facardin view'd, as sages Fair Crystalline immur'd in lucid cell. Not thus the few, by happier fortune grac'd, And blest, like you, with talents, wealth, and taste, Who gather nobly, with judicious hand, The Muse's treasures from each letter'd strand. For you the Monk illum'd his pictur'd page, For you the press defies the Spoils of age; For you Erasmus The Folio-Aldus loads your happy Shelves, And dapper Elzevirs, like fairy elves, Shew their light forms amidst the well-gilt Twelves: In slender type the Giolitos shine, And bold Bodoni stamps his Roman line. For you the Louvre opes its regal doors, And either Didot lends his brilliant stores: With faultless types, and costly sculptures bright, Ibarra's Quixote charms your ravish'd sight: Laborde in splendid tablets shall explain Thy beauties, glorious, tho' unhappy Spain! O, hallowed name, the theme of future years, Embalm'd in Patriot-blood, and England's tears, Be thine fresh honors from the tuneful tongue, By Isis' stream which mourning Zion sung! But devious oft' from ev'ry classic Muse, The keen Collector meaner paths will choose: And first the Margin's breadth his soul employs, Pure, snowy, broad, the type of nobler joys. In vain might Homer roll the tide of song, Or Horace smile, or Tully charm the throng; If crost by Pallas' ire, the trenchant blade Or too oblique, or near, the edge invade, The Bibliomane exclaims, with haggard eye, "No Margin!" turns in haste, and scorns to buy. Or Madoc's mass conceals its veins of lead. The glossy lines in polish'd order stand, While the vast margin spreads on either hand, Like Russian wastes, that edge the frozen deep, Chill with pale glare, and lull to mortal sleep. Or English books, neglected and forgot, Excite his wish in many a dusty lot: Whatever trash Midwinter gave to day, Or Harper's rhiming sons, in paper gray, At ev'ry auction, bent on fresh supplies, He cons his Catalogue with anxious eyes: Where'er the slim Italics mark the page, Curious and rare his ardent mind engage. Unlike the Swans, in Tuscan Song display'd, He hovers eager o'er Oblivion's Shade, To snatch obscurest names from endless night, And give Cokain or Fletcher In red morocco drest he loves to boast The bloody murder, or the yelling ghost; Or dismal ballads, sung to crouds of old, Now cheaply bought for thrice their weight in gold. Some flow'rs 'Tis thus ev'n Shirley boasts a golden line, And Lovelace strikes, by fits, a note divine. Th' unequal gleams like midnight-lightnings play, And deepen'd gloom succeeds, in place of day. But human bliss still meets some envious storm; He droops to view his Paynters' mangled form: Presumptuous grief, while pensive Taste repines O'er the frail relics of her Attic Shrines! O for that power, for which Magicians vye. To look through earth, and secret hoards descry! I'd spurn such gems as Marinel And all the wealth Aladdin's cavern held, Might I divine in what mysterious gloom The rolls of sacred bards have found their tomb: Beneath what mould'ring tower, or waste champain, Is hid Menander, sweetest of the train: Where rests Antimachus' forgotten lyre, Where gentle Sappho's still seductive fire; Or he, Sweet Philomel The menial train has prov'd the Scourge of wit, Ev'n Omar burnt less Science than the spit. Earthquakes and wars remit their deadly rage, But ev'ry feast demands some fated page. Ye Towers of Julius, Of all the piles that saw our nation's stain, When Harry's sway opprest the groaning realm, And Lust and Rapine seiz'd the wav'ring helm. Then ruffian-hands defaced the sacred fanes, Their saintly statues and their storied panes; Then from the chest, with ancient art embost, The Penman's pious scrolls were rudely tost; Then richest manuscripts, profusely spread, The brawny Churls' devouring Oven fed: And thence Collectors date the heav'nly ire That wrapt Augusta's domes in sheets of fire. Taste, tho' misled, may yet some purpose gain, But Fashion guides a book-compelling train. Once, far apart from Learning's moping crew, The travell'd beau display'd his red-heel'd shoe, Till Orford rose, and told of rhiming Peers, Repeating noble words to polish'd ears; In trifling toil'd, nor "blush'd to find it fame." The letter'd fop, now takes a larger scope, With classic furniture, design'd by Hope, (Hope whom Upholst'rers eye with mute despair, The doughty pedant of an elbow-chair;) Now warm'd by Orford, and by Granger school'd, In Paper-books, superbly gilt and tool'd, He pastes, from injur'd volumes snipt away, His English Heads, in chronicled array. Torn from their destin'd page (unworthy meed Of knightly counsel, and heroic deed) Not Faithorne's stroke, nor Field's own types can save Indignant readers seek the image fled, And curse the busy fool, who wants a head. Proudly he shews, with many a smile elate, The scrambling subjects of the private plate; While Time their actions and their names bereaves, They grin for ever in the guarded leaves. Like Poets, born, in vain Collectors strive To cross their Fate, and learn the art to thrive. Like Cacus, bent to tame their struggling will, The Tyrant-passion drags them backward still: Confess, mid' anxious toil, its lurking pow'rs. How pure the joy, when first my hands unfold The small, rare volume, black with tarnish'd gold! The Eye skims restless, like the roving bee, O'er flowers of wit, or song, or repartee, While sweet as Springs, new-bubbling from the stone, Glides through the breast some pleasing theme unknown. Now dipt in Rossi's His harmless tales awake a transient smile. Now Bouchet's motley stores my thoughts arrest, With wond'rous reading, and with learned jest. Bouchet The valued gift of Stanley's lib'ral hand. Now sadly pleased, through faded Rome I stray, And mix regrets with gentle Du Bellay; Or turn, with keen delight, the curious page, Where hardy Pasquin But D——n's strains should tell the sad reverse, When Business calls, invet'rate foe to verse! Tell how "the Demon claps his iron hands," "Waves his lank locks, and scours along the lands." To scenes of danger, and to sights of woe. Ev'n when to Margate ev'ry Cockney roves, And brainsick-poets long for shelt'ring groves, Whose lofty shades exclude the noontide glow, While Zephyrs breathe, and waters trill below, Me rigid Fate averts, by tasks like these, From heav'nly musings, and from letter'd ease. Such wholesome checks the better Genius sends, From dire rehearsals to protect our friends: Else when the social rites our joys renew, The stuff'd Portfolio would alarm your view, Whence volleying rhimes your patience would o'er-come, And, spite of kindness, drive you early home. So when the traveller's hasty footsteps glide Near smoking lava on Vesuvio's side, Hoarse-mutt'ring thunders from the depths proceed, And spouting fires incite his eager speed. Appall'd he flies, while rattling show'rs invade, Invoking ev'ry Saint for instant aid: Breathless, amaz'd, he seeks the distant shore, And vows to tempt the dang'rous gulph no more. TRIOLET TO HER HUSBAND.F. Fertiault. Rendered into English by A. Lang in Books rule thy mind, so let it be! Thy heart is mine, and mine alone. What more can I require of thee? Books rule thy mind, so let it be! Contented when thy bliss I see, I wish a world of books thine own. Books rule thy mind, so let it be! Thy heart is mine, and mine alone. A NOOK AND A BOOK.William Freeland. From 'A Birth Song and other Give me a nook and a book, And let the proud world spin round; Let it scramble by hook or by crook For wealth or a name with a sound. You are welcome to amble your ways, Aspirers to place or to glory; May big bells jangle your praise, And golden pens blazon your story! For me, let me dwell in my nook, Here by the curve of this brook, That croons to the tune of my book, Whose melody wafts me forever On the waves of an unseen river. Give me a book and a nook Far away from the glitter and strife; Give me a staff and a crook, The calm and the sweetness of life; Let me pause—let me brood as I list, On the marvels of heaven's own spinning— Sunlight and moonlight and mist, Vain world, let me reign in my nook, King of this kingdom, my book, A region by fashion forsook; Pass on, ye lean gamblers for glory, Nor mar the sweet tune of my story! THE SULTAN OF MY BOOKS.There is many a true word spoken in doggerel.— Czech Folk-Song. Edmund Gosse. Written for the present collection. Come hither, my Wither, My Suckling, my Dryden! My Hudibras, hither! My Heinsius from Leyden! Dear Play-books in quarto, Fat tomes in brown leather, Stray never too far to Come back here together! Books writ on occult and Heretical letters, I, I am the Sultan Of you and your betters. I need you all round me; When wits have grown muddy, My best hours have found me With you in my study. I've varied departments To give my books shelter; Shelves, open apartments For tomes helter-skelter; For common editions,— I find them, as that's fit, Good wholesome positions. But books that I cherish Live under glass cases; In the waste lest they perish I build them oases; Where gas cannot find them, Where worms cannot grapple, Those panes hold behind them, My eye and its apple. And here you see flirting Fine folks of distinction: Unique books just skirting The verge of extinction; Old texts with one error And long notes upon it; The 'Magistrates' Mirror' (With Nottingham's sonnet); Tooled Russias to gaze on, Moroccos to fondle, My Denham, in blazon, My vellum-backed Vondel, My Marvell,—a copy Was never seen taller,— My Jones's 'Love's Poppy,' My dear little Waller; My exquisite, 'Adamo!' My Dean Donne's 'Death's Duel!' My Behn (naughty madam O!); Ephelia's! Orinda's! Ma'am Pix and Ma'am Barker!— The rhymsters you find, as The morals grow darker! I never upbraid these Old periwigged sinners, Their songs and light ladies, Their dances and dinners; My book-shelf's a haven From storms puritanic,— We sure may be gay when Of death we've no panic! My parlor is little, And poor are its treasures; All pleasures are brittle, And so are my pleasures; But though I shall never Be Beckford or Locker, While Fate does not sever The door from the knocker, No book shall tap vainly At latch or at lattice (If costumed urbanely, And worth our care, that is): Shall rise in morocco, To shield the new comer From storm or sirocco. ————————— I might prate thus for pages, The theme is so pleasant; But the gloom of the ages Lies on me at present; All business and fear to The cold world I banish. Hush! like the Ameer, to My harem I vanish! OUR BOOK-SHELVES.Thomas Gordon Hake. From the 'State' of April 17, 1886. TO HIS BOOK.Robert Herrick. Prefixed to 'Hesperides.' 1648. While thou didst keep thy candor undefiled, Dearly I loved thee, as my first-born child; But when I sent thee wantonly to roam From house to house, and never stay at home; I brake my bonds of love, and bade thee go, Regardless whether well thou sped'st or no, On with thy fortunes then, whate'er they be; If good I'll smile, if bad I'll sigh for thee. TO HIS BOOK.Robert Herrick. Make haste away, and let one be A friendly patron unto thee; Lest, rapt from hence, I see thee lie Torn for the use of pastery; Or see thy injured leaves serve well To make loose gowns for mackerel; Or see the grocers, in a trice, Make hoods of thee to serve out spice. TO HIS BOOKS.Imitated by Austin Dobson from the For mart and street you seem to pine With restless glances, Book of mine! Still craving on some stall to stand, Fresh pumiced from the binder's hand. You chafe at locks, and burn to quit Your modest haunt and audience fit, For hearers less discriminate. I reared you up for no such fate. Still, if you must be published, go; But mind, you can't come back, you know! "What have I done?"—I hear you cry, And writhe beneath some critic's eye; 'What did I want?'—when, scarce polite, They do but yawn, and roll you tight. And yet, methinks, if I may guess (Putting aside your heartlessness In leaving me, and this your home), You should find favor, too, at Rome. That is, they'll like you while you're young. When you are old, you'll pass among The Great Unwashed,—then thumbed and sped, Or to Ilerda you'll be sent, Or Utica, for banishment! And I, whose counsel you disdain, At that your lot shall laugh amain, Wryly, as he who, like a fool, Pushed o'er the cliff his restive mule. Stay, there is worse behind. In age They e'en may take your babbling page In some remotest "slum" to teach Mere boys the rudiments of speech! But go. When on warm days you see A chance of listeners, speak of me. Tell them I soared from low estate, A freedman's son, to higher fate (That is, make up to me in worth What you must take in point of birth); Then tell them that I won renown In peace and war, and pleased the Town; Paint me as early gray, and one Little of stature, fond of sun, Quick-tempered, too,—but nothing more. Add (if they ask) I'm forty-four, Or was, the year that over us Both Lollius ruled and Lepidus. SONNET.Found by Mr. Alexander Ireland in Were I to name, out of the times gone by, The poets dearest to me, I should say, Pulci for spirits, and a fine, free way; Chaucer for manners, and close, silent eye; Milton for classic taste, and harp strung high; Spenser for luxury, and sweet, sylvan play; Horace for chatting with, from day to day; Shakspere for all, but most society. But which take with me, could I take but one? Shakspere, as long as I was unoppressed With the world's weight, making sad thoughts intenser; But did I wish, out of the common sun, To lay a wounded heart in leafy rest, And dream of things far off and healing,—Spenser. MY BOOKS.Willis Fletcher Johnson. From the Boston 'Transcript.' On my study shelves they stand, Well known all to eye and hand, Bound in gorgeous cloth of gold, In morocco rich and old. Some in paper, plain and cheap, Some in muslin, calf, and sheep; Volumes great and volumes small, Ranged along my study wall; But their contents are past finding By their size or by their binding. There is one with gold agleam, Like the Sangreal in a dream, Back and boards in every part Triumph of the binder's art; Costing more, 'tis well believed, Than the author e'er received. But its contents? Idle tales, Flappings of a shallop's sails! In the treasury of learning Scarcely worth a penny's turning. Here's a tome in paper plain, Soiled and torn and marred with stain, In the darkest, dustiest nook. Take it down, and lo! each page Breathes the wisdom of a sage: Weighed a thousand times in gold, Half its worth would not be told, For all truth of ancient story Crowns each line with deathless glory. On my study shelves they stand; But my study walls expand, As thought's pinions are unfurled, Till they compass all the world. Endless files go marching by, Men of lowly rank and high, Some in broadcloth, gem-adorned, Some in homespun, fortune-scorned; But God's scales that all are weighed in Heed not what each man's arrayed in! TO MY BOOKSELLER.This is from the third of the poet's books Thou that mak'st gain thy end, and wisely well, Call'st a book good, or bad, as it doth sell, Use mine so too; I give thee leave; but crave, For the luck's sake, it thus much favor have, To lie upon thy stall, till it be sought; Not offered, as it made suit to be bought; Nor have my title-leaf on posts or walls, Or in cleft-sticks, advanced to make calls For termers, or some clerk-like serving-man, Who scarce can spell thy hard names; whose knight less can. If without these vile arts it will not sell, Send it to Bucklersbury, there 't will well. TO SIR HENRY GOODYERE.This is the eighty-sixth of the poet's first When I would know thee, Goodyere, my thought looks Upon thy well-made choice of friends and books; Then do I love thee, and behold thy ends In making thy friends books, and thy books friends: Now must I give thy life and deed the voice Attending such a study, such a choice; Where, though 't be love that to thy praise doth move, It was a knowledge that begat that love. IN THE ALBUM OF LUCY BARTON.Charles Lamb. Written in 1824 for the daughter of his Little Book, surnamed of white, Clean as yet and fair to sight, Keep thy attribution right. Never disproportioned scrawl; Ugly blot, that's worse than all; On thy maiden clearness fall! In each letter, here designed, Let the reader emblemed find Neatness of the owner's mind. Gilded margins count a sin, Let thy leaves attraction win By the golden rules within; Saying fetched from sages old; Laws which Holy Writ unfold, Worthy to be graved in gold: Lighter fancies not excluding; Blameless wit, with nothing rude in, Sometimes mildly interluding, Virtue's self hath oft her pleasure In sweet Muses' groves of leisure. Riddles dark, perplexing sense; Darker meanings of offence; What but shades—he banished hence. Whitest thoughts in whitest dress, Candid meanings, best express Mind of quiet Quakeress. BALLADE OF THE BOOK-HUNTER.A. Lang. From 'Ballades in Blue China.' 1880. In torrid heats of late July, In March, beneath the bitter bise, He book-hunts while the loungers fly,— He book-hunts, though December freeze; In breeches baggy at the knees, And heedless of the public jeers, For these, for these, he hoards his fees,— Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs. No dismal stall escapes his eye, He turns o'er tomes of low degrees, There soiled Romanticists may lie, Or Restoration comedies; Each tract that flutters in the breeze For him is charged with hopes and fears, In mouldy novels fancy sees Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs! With restless eyes that peer and spy, Sad eyes that heed not skies nor trees, In dismal nooks he loves to pry, Whose motto evermore is Spes! Grown rarer with the fleeting years, In rich men's shelves they take their ease, Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs! ENVOY. Prince, all the things that tease and please, Fame, love, wealth, kisses, cheers, and tears, What are they but such toys as these— Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs? BALLADE OF TRUE WISDOM.A. Lang. From 'Ballades in Blue China.' 1880. While others are asking for beauty or fame, Or praying to know that for which they should pray, Or courting Queen Venus, that affable dame, Or chasing the Muses the weary and gray, The sage has found out a more excellent way,— To Pan and to Pallas his incense he showers, And his humble petition puts up day by day, For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers. Inventors may bow to the God that is lame, And crave from the light of his stithy a ray; Philosophers kneel to the God without name, Like the people of Athens, agnostics are they; The hunter a fawn to Diana will slay, The maiden wild roses will wreathe for the Hours,— But the wise man will ask, ere libation he pay, For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers. Oh grant me a life without pleasure or blame (As mortals count pleasure who rush through their day With a speed to which that of the tempest is tame). Where the waves can be surly in winter, and play With the sea-weed in summer, ye bountiful powers! And I'd leave all the hurry, the noise, and the fray, For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers. ENVOY. Gods, give or withhold it! Your "yea" and your "nay" Are immutable, heedless of outcry of ours: But life is worth living, and here we would stay For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers. BALLADE OF THE BOOKMAN'S PARADISE.A. Lang. From 'Rhymes À la Mode.' 1885. There is a Heaven, or here, or there,— A Heaven there is, for me and you, Where bargains meet for purses spare, Like ours, are not so far and few. Thuanus' bees go humming through The learned groves, 'neath rainless skies, O'er volumes old and volumes new, Within that Bookman's Paradise! There treasures bound for Longepierre Keep brilliant their morocco blue, There Hookes' 'Amanda' is not rare, Nor early tracts upon Peru! Racine is common as Rotrou, No Shakspere Quarto search defies, And Caxtons grow as blossoms grew, Within that Bookman's Paradise! There's Eve,—not our first mother fair,— But Clovis Eve, a binder true; Thither does Bauzonnet repair, Derome, Le Gascon, Padeloup! That dock a volume's honest size, Nor they that "letter" backs askew, Within that Bookman's Paradise! ENVOY. Friend, do not Heber and De Thou, And Scott, and Southey, kind and wise, La chasse au bouquin still pursue Within that Bookman's Paradise? THE ROWFANT BOOKS.Ballade en guise de rondeau, written for The Rowfant books, how fair they show, The Quarto quaint, the Aldine tall, Print, autograph, portfolio! Back from the outer air they call, The athletes from the Tennis ball, This Rhymer from his rod and hooks,— Would I could sing them, one and all,— The Rowfant books! The Rowfant books! In sun and snow They're dear, but most when tempests fall; The folio towers above the row As once, o'er minor prophets,—Saul! What jolly jest books, and what small "Dear dumpy Twelves" to fill the nooks. You do not find on every stall The Rowfant books! The Rowfant books! These long ago Were chained within some College hall; These manuscripts retain the glow Of many a colored capital; While the Pastissier puzzles cooks, Theirs is a joy that does not pall,— The Rowfant books! ENVOY. The Rowfant books,—ah, magical As famed Armida's golden looks, They hold the Rhymer for their thrall,— The Rowfant books! THE ROWFANT LIBRARY.A. Lang. Written for the catalogue of Mr. Frederick I mind me of the Shepherd's saw, For, when men spoke of Heaven, quoth he, "It's everything that's bright and braw, But Bourhope's good enough for me." Among the green deep bosomed hills That guard St. Mary's Loch it lies, The silence of the pastures fills That yeoman's homely paradise! Enough for him his mountain lake, His glen the burn goes singing through; And Rowfant, when the thrushes wake, Might well seem Paradise to you! For all is old, and tried, and dear, And all is fair, and all about The brook that murmurs from the mere Is dimpled with the rising trout. And when the skies of shorter days Are dark, and all the paths are mire, Sports from the cheerful study fire; O'er Quartos, where our Fathers read Entranced, the Book of Shakspere's play, O'er all that Poe has dreamed of dread, And all that Herrick sang of gay! Rare First Editions, duly prized, Among them dearest far I rate The tome where Walton's hand revised His magical receipts for bait. Happy, who rich in toys like these Forgets a weary nation's ills, Who, from his study window sees The circle of the Sussex hills! But back to town my Muse must fly, And taste the smoke, and list to them Who cry the News, and seem to cry (With each Gladstonian victory), Woe, woe unto Jerusalem! GHOSTS IN THE LIBRARY.A. Lang. From 'Longman's Magazine,' July, 1886. Suppose, when now the house is dumb, When lights are out, and ashes fall,— Suppose their ancient owners come To claim our spoils of shop and stall, Ah me! within the narrow hall How strange a mob would meet and go, What famous folk would haunt them all, Octavo, quarto, folio! The great Napoleon lays his hand Upon this eagle-headed N, That marks for his a pamphlet banned By all but scandal-loving men,— A libel from some nameless den Of Frankfort—Arnaud, À la SphÈre, Wherein one spilt, with venal pen, Lies o'er the loves of MoliÈre. Another shade—he does not see "Boney," the foeman of his race— With that grave homely Border face. He claims his poem of the chase That rang Benvoirlich's valley through; And this, that doth the lineage trace And fortunes of the bold Buccleuch; For these were his, and these he gave To one who dwelt beside the Peel, That murmurs with its tiny wave To join the Tweed at Ashestiel. Now thick as motes the shadows wheel, And find their own, and claim a share Of books wherein Ribou did deal, Or Roulland sold to wise Colbert. What famous folk of old are here! A royal duke comes down to us, And greatly wants his Elzevir, His Pagan tutor, Lucius. And Beckford claims an amorous Old heathen in morocco blue; But stately Jacques Auguste de Thou! They come, the wise, the great, the true, They jostle on the narrow stair, The frolic Countess de Verrue, Lamoignon, ay, and Longepierre, The new and elder dead are there— The lords of speech, and song, and pen, Gambetta, Drummond of haunted Hawthornden. Ah, and with those, a hundred more, Whose names, whose deeds, are quite forgot: Brave 'Smiths' and 'Thompsons' by the score, Scrawled upon many a shabby 'lot.' This play-book was the joy of Pott Pott, for whom now no mortal grieves. Our names, like his, remembered not, Like his, shall flutter on fly-leaves! We bookish ghosts, perchance, may flit; A man may turn a page, and sigh, Seeing one's name, to think of it. Beauty, or Poet, Sage, or Wit, May ope our book, and muse awhile, And fall into a dreaming fit, As now we dream, and wake, and smile! THE BOOK BATTALION.George Parsons Lathrop. Written for the present collection. Wherever I go, there's a trusty battalion That follows me faithfully, steady, and true; Their force, when I falter, I safely may rally on, Knowing their stoutness will carry me through: Some fifteen hundred in order impartial, So ranged that they tell what they mean by their looks. Of all the armies the world can marshal There are no better soldiers than well-tried books. Dumb in their ranks on the shelves imprisoned, They never retreat. Give the word, and they'll fire! A few with scarlet and gold are bedizened, But many muster in rough attire; And some, with service and scars grown wizened, Seem hardly the mates for their fellows in youth; Yet they, and the troops armed only with quiz and Light laughter, all battle alike for the truth. Here are those who gave motive to sock and to buskin; With critics, historians, poets galore; Which Ruskin would hate from his heart's very core; MoliÈre ('99), an old calf-bound edition, "De Pierre Didot l'aÎnÉ, et de Firmin Didot." Which, meek and demure, with a sort of contrition, Is masking its gun-lights, with fun all aglow; And Smollett and Fielding, as veterans battered— Cloth stripped from their backs, and their sides out of joint, Their pictures of life all naked and tattered Being thus applied to themselves with a point; And six or eight books that I wrote myself, To look at which, even, I'm half afraid; They brought me more labor and pleasure than pelf, And are clamoring still because they're not paid. But these raw levies remain still faithful, Because they know that volumes old Stand by me, although their eyes dim and wraithful Remind me they seldom at profit were sold. So I say, be they splendid or tatterdemalion, If only you know what they mean by their looks, You will never find a better battalion Of soldiers to serve you than well-tried books. ON THE FLY-LEAF OF A BOOK OF OLD PLAYS.Walter Learned. Written for the present collection. At Cato's-Head in Russell Street These leaves she sat a-stitching; I fancy she was trim and neat, Blue-eyed and quite bewitching. Before her, in the street below, All powder, ruffs, and laces, There strutted idle London beaux To ogle pretty faces; While, filling many a Sedan chair With hoop and monstrous feather, In patch and powder London's fair Went trooping past together. Swift, Addison, and Pope, mayhap They sauntered slowly past her, Or printer's boy, with gown and cap For Steele, went trotting faster. For beau nor wit had she a look, Nor lord nor lady minding; She bent her head above this book, Attentive to her binding. Caught on her nimble fingers, Was stitched within this volume, where Until to-day it lingers. Past and forgotten, beaux and fair; Wigs, powder, all out-dated; A queer antique, the Sedan chair; Pope, stiff and antiquated. Yet as I turn these odd old plays, This single stray lock finding, I'm back in those forgotten days And watch her at her binding. TOO MANY BOOKS.Robert Leighton. From 'Reuben, and Other Poems.' 1875 I would that we were only readers now, And wrote no more, or in rare heats of soul Sweated out thoughts when the o'er-burden'd brow Was powerless to control. Then would all future books be small and few, And, freed of dross, the soul's refinÈd gold; So should we have a chance to read the new, Yet not forego the old. But as it is, Lord help us, in this flood Of daily papers, books, and magazines! We scramble blind as reptiles in the mud, And know not what it means. Is it the myriad spawn of vagrant tides, Whose growth would overwhelm both sea and shore, Yet often necessary loss, provides Sufficient and no more? Is it the broadcast sowing of the seeds, And from the stones, the thorns and fertile soil, Rewards the sower's toil? Is it all needed for the varied mind? Gives not the teeming press a book too much— Not one, but in its dense neglect shall find Some needful heart to touch? Ah, who can say that even this blade of grass No mission has—superfluous as it looks? Then wherefore feel oppressed and cry, Alas, There are too many books! FROM THE FLY-LEAF OF THE ROWFANT |
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