CHAPTER 24.
POETRY OF THE LIBRARY.
THE LIBRARIAN'S DREAM.
1. He sat at night by his lonely bed, With an open book before him; And slowly nodded his weary head, As slumber came stealing o'er him.
2. And he saw in his dream a mighty host Of the writers gone before, And the shadowy form of many a ghost Glided in at the open door.
3. Great Homer came first in a snow-white shroud, And Virgil sang sweet by his side; While Cicero thundered in accents loud, And Caesar most gravely replied.
4. Anacreon, too, from his rhythmical lips The honey of Hybla distilled, And Herodotus suffered a partial eclipse, While Horace with music was filled.
5. The procession of ancients was brilliant and long, Aristotle and Plato were there, Thucydides, too, and Tacitus strong, And Plutarch, and Sappho the fair.
6. Aristophanes elbowed gay Ovid's white ghost, And Euripides Xenophon led, While Propertius laughed loud at Juvenal's jokes, And Sophocles rose from the dead.
7. Then followed a throng to memory dear, Of writers more modern in age, Cervantes and Shakespeare, who died the same year, And Chaucer, and Bacon the sage.
8. Immortal the laurels that decked the fair throng, And Dante moved by with his lyre, While Montaigne and Pascal stood rapt by his song, And Boccaccio paused to admire.
9. Sweet Spenser and Calderon moved arm in arm, While Milton and Sidney were there, Pope, Dryden, and Molière added their charm, And Bunyan, and Marlowe so rare.
10. Then Gibbon stalked by in classical guise, And Hume, and Macaulay, and Froude, While Darwin, and Huxley, and Tyndall looked wise, And Humboldt and Comte near them stood.
11. Dean Swift looked sardonic on Addison's face, And Johnson tipped Boswell a wink, Walter Scott and Jane Austen hobnobbed o'er a glass, And Goethe himself deigned to drink.
12. Robert Burns followed next with Thomas Carlyle, Jean Paul paired with Coleridge, too, While De Foe elbowed Goldsmith, the master of style, And Fielding and Schiller made two.
13. Rousseau with his eloquent, marvellous style, And Voltaire, with his keen, witty pen, Victor Hugo so grand, though repellent the while, And Dumas and Balzac again.
14. Dear Thackeray came in his happiest mood, And stayed until midnight was done, Bulwer-Lytton, and Reade, and Kingsley and Hood, And Dickens, the master of fun.
15. George Eliot, too, with her matter-full page, And Byron, and Browning, and Keats, While Shelley and Tennyson joined youth and age, And Wordsworth the circle completes.
16. Then followed a group of America's best, With Irving, and Bryant, and Holmes, While Bancroft and Motley unite with the rest, And Thoreau with Whittier comes.
17. With his Raven in hand dreamed on Edgar Poe, And Longfellow sweet and serene, While Prescott, and Ticknor, and Emerson too, And Hawthorne and Lowell were seen.
18. While thus the assembly of witty and wise Rejoiced the librarian's sight, Ere the wonderful vision had fled from his eyes, From above shone a heavenly light:
19. And solemn and sweet came a voice from the skies, "All battles and conflicts are done, The temple of Knowledge shall open all eyes, And law, faith, and reason are one!"
When the radiant dawn of the morning broke, From his glorious dream the librarian woke.
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THE LIBRARY.
That place that does contain my books, My books, the best companions, is to me, A glorious court, where hourly I converse With the old sages and philosophers; And sometimes, for variety I confer With kings and emperors, and weigh their counsels. BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
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The bard of every age and clime, Of genius fruitful and of soul sublime, Who from the glowing mint of fancy pours No spurious metal, fused from common ores, But gold to matchless purity refined, And stamped with all the Godhead in his mind. JUVENAL.
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Books, we know, Are a substantial world, both pure and good; Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, Our pastime and our happiness will grow. WORDSWORTH.
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QUAINT LINES ON A BOOK-WORM.
The Bokeworme sitteth in his celle, He studyethe all alone, And burnethe oute the oile, 'Till ye midnight hour is gone Then gethe he downe upon his bedde, Ne mo watch will he a-keepe, He layethe his heade on ye pillowe, And eke he tryes to sleepe. Then swyfte there cometh a vision grimme, And greetythe him sleepynge fair, And straighte he dreameth of grislie dreames, And dreades fellowne and rayre. Wherefore, if cravest life to eld Ne rede longe uppe at night, But go to bed at Curfew bell And ryse wythe mornynge's lyte.
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BALLADE OF THE BOOK-HUNTER.
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_! But ah! the fabled treasure flees; Grown rarer with the fleeting years, In rich men's shelves they take their ease,-- Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs!
Prince, all the things that tease and please,-- Fame, hope, wealth, kisses, jeers and tears, What are they but such toys as these-- Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs? ANDREW LANG.
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'Tis in books the chief Of all perfections to be plain and brief. SAMUEL BUTLER.
Of all those arts in which the wise excel, Nature's chief master-piece is writing well. BUCKINGHAM.
Books should to one of these four ends conduce: For wisdom, piety, delight, or use. SIR JOHN DENHAM.
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MY BOOKS.
Oh, happy he who, weary of the sound Of throbbing life, can shut his study door, Like Heinsius, on it all, to find a store Of peace that otherwise is never found! Such happiness is mine, when all around My dear dumb friends in groups of three or four Command my soul to linger on the shore Of those fair realms where they reign monarchs crowned. To-day the strivings of the world are naught, For I am in a land that glows with God, And I am in a path by angels trod. Dost ask what book creates such heavenly thought? Then know that I with Dante soar afar, Till earth shrinks slowly to a tiny star. J. WILLIAMS.
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THOUGHTS IN A LIBRARY.
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.
Here shall the poets chant for thee Their sweetest, loftiest lays, And prophets wait to guide thy steps 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! ANNE C. LYNCH BOTTA.
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VERSES IN A LIBRARY.
Give me that book whose power is such That I forget the north wind's touch.
Give me that book that brings to me Forgetfulness of what I be.
Give me that book that takes my life In seeming far from all its strife.
Give me that book wherein each page Destroys my sense of creeping age. JOHN KENDRICK BANGS.
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A BOOK BY THE BROOK.
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. WILLIAM FREELAND.
The love of learning, the sequestered nooks, And all the sweet serenity of books. H. W. LONGFELLOW.
Oh for a booke and a shady nooke Eyther in door or out, With the greene leaves whispering overhead, Or the streete cryes all about: Where I maie reade all at my ease Both of the newe and olde, For a jollie goode booke whereon to looke Is better to me than golde!
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TO DANIEL ELZEVIR.
(_From the Latin of Ménage._)
What do I see! Oh! gods divine And Goddesses--this Book of mine-- This child of many hopes and fears, Is published by the Elzevirs! Oh Perfect publishers complete! Oh dainty volume, new and neat! The Paper doth outshine the snow, The Print is blacker than the crow, The Title-page, with crimson bright, The vellum cover smooth and white, All sorts of readers to invite; Ay, and will keep them reading still, Against their will, or with their will! Thus what of grace the Rhymes may lack The Publisher has given them back, As Milliners adorn the fair Whose charms are something skimp and spare.
Oh dulce decus, Elzevirs! The pride of dead and dawning years, How can a poet best repay The debt he owes your House to-day? May this round world, while aught endures, Applaud, and buy, these books of yours. May purchasers incessant pop, My Elzevirs, within your shop, And learned bards salute, with cheers, The volumes of the Elzevirs, Till your renown fills earth and sky, Till men forget the Stephani, And all that Aldus wrought, and all Turnebus sold in shop or stall, While still may Fate's (and Binders') shears Respect, and spare, the Elzevirs!
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Blessings be with them, and eternal praise, Who gave us nobler loves and nobler cares! The Poets, who on earth have made us heirs Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays. WORDSWORTH.
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COMPANIONS.
But books, old friends that are always new, Of all good things that we know are best; They never forsake us, as others do, And never disturb our inward rest. Here is truth in a world of lies, And all that in man is great and wise! Better than men and women, friend, That are dust, though dear in our joy and pain, Are the books their cunning hands have penned, For they depart, but the books remain. RICHARD HENRY STODDARD.
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THE PARADOX OF BOOKS.
I'm strange contradictions; I'm new and I'm old, I'm often in tatters, and oft decked with gold. Though I never could read, yet lettered I'm found; Though blind, I enlighten; though loose, I am bound. I'm always in black, and I'm always in white; I am grave and I'm gay, I am heavy and light. In form too I differ,--I'm thick and I'm thin; I've no flesh and no bone, yet I'm covered with skin; I've more points than the compass, more stops than the flute; I sing without voice, without speaking confute; I'm English, I'm German, I'm French, and I'm Dutch; Some love me too fondly, some slight me too much; I often die soon, though I sometimes live ages, And no monarch alive has so many pages. HANNAH MORE.
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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 in our own: If love, joy, laughter, sorrow please my mind, Love, joy, grief, laughter in my books I find. FRANCIS BENNOCH.
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MY LIBRARY.
All round the room my silent servants wait,-- My friends in every season, bright and dim Angels and seraphim Come down and murmur to me, sweet and low, And spirits of the skies all come and go Early and late; From the old world's divine and distant date, From the sublimer few, Down to the poet who but yester-eve Sang sweet and made us grieve, All come, assembling here in order due. And here I dwell with Poesy, my mate, With Erato and all her vernal sighs, Great Clio with her victories elate, Or pale Urania's deep and starry eyes. Oh friends, whom chance or change can never harm, Whom Death the tyrant cannot doom to die, Within whose folding soft eternal charm I love to lie, And meditate upon your verse that flows, And fertilizes wheresoe'er it goes. BRYAN WALLER PROCTER.
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RATIONAL MADNESS.
_A Song, for the Lover of Curious and Rare Books._
Come, boys, fill your glasses, and fill to the brim, Here's the essence of humor, the soul, too, of whim! Attend and receive (and sure 'tis no vapour) A "hap' worth of wit on a pennyworth of paper."
Those joys which the Bibliomania affords Are felt and acknowledged by Dukes and by Lords! And the finest estate would be offer'd in vain For an exemplar bound by the famed Roger Payne!
To a proverb goes madness with love hand in hand, But our senses we yield to a double command; The dear frenzy in both is first rous'd by fair looks,-- Here's our sweethearts, my boys! not forgetting our books!
Thus our time may we pass with rare books and rare friends, Growing wiser and better, till life itself ends: And may those who delight not in black-letter lore, By some obsolete act be sent from our shore!
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BALLADE OF TRUE WISDOM.
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 grey, 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 fire on 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) O grant me a house by the beach of a bay, 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, grant 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. ANDREW LANG.
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THE LIBRARY.
They soothe the grieved, the stubborn they chastise, Fools they admonish, and confirm the wise: Their aid they yield to all: they never shun The man of sorrow, nor the wretch undone: Unlike the hard, the selfish, and the proud, They fly not sullen from the suppliant crowd; Nor tell to various people various things, But show to subjects, what they show to kings.
Blest be the gracious Power, who taught mankind To stamp a lasting image of the mind!
With awe, around these silent walks I tread; These are the lasting mansions of the dead:-- "The dead!" methinks a thousand tongues reply; "These are the tombs of such as cannot die! Crown'd with eternal fame, they sit sublime, And laugh at all the little strife of time."
Lo, all in silence, all in order stand, And mighty folios first, a lordly band; Then quartos their well-order'd ranks maintain, And light octavos fill a spacious plain: See yonder, rangèd in more frequent rows, A humbler band of duodecimos; While undistinguished trifles swell the scene, The last new play and fritter'd magazine.
Here all the rage of controversy ends, And rival zealots rest like bosom friends: An Athanasian here, in deep repose, Sleeps with the fiercest of his Arian foes; Socinians here with Calvinists abide, And thin partitions angry chiefs divide; Here wily Jesuits simple Quakers meet, And Bellarmine has rest at Luther's feet. GEORGE CRABBE.
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ETERNITY OF POETRY.
For deeds doe die, however noblie donne, And thoughts do as themselves decay; But wise words, taught in numbers for to runne Recorded by the Muses, live for ay; Ne may with storming showers be washt away, Ne bitter breathing windes with harmful blast, Nor age, nor envie, shall them ever wast. SPENSER.
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THE OLD BOOKS.
The old books, the old books, the books of long ago! Who ever felt Miss Austen tame, or called Sir Walter slow? We did not care the worst to hear of human sty or den; We liked to love a little bit, and trust our fellow-men. The old books, the old books, as pure as summer breeze! We read them under garden boughs, by fire-light on our knees, They did not teach, they did not preach, or scold us into good; A noble spirit from them breathed, the rest was understood.
The old books, the old books, the mother loves them best; They leave no bitter taste behind to haunt the youthful breast: They bid us hope, they bid us fill our hearts with visions fair; They do not paralyze the will with problems of despair. And as they lift from sloth and sense to follow loftier planes, And stir the blood of indolence to bubble in the veins: Inheritors of mighty things, who own a lineage high, We feel within us budding wings that long to reach the sky: To rise above the commonplace, and through the cloud to soar, And join the loftier company of grander souls of yore. THE SPECTATOR.