Part 1
[** Transcriber's Notes: Superscripts have been represented using regular characters, e.g. "ye 27th". The [oe] ligature has been replaced with simply an oe. **]
BALLADS OF BOOKS
BALLADS OF BOOKS
CHOSEN BY BRANDER MATTHEWS
NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1900
_Copyright, 1886_ BY GEORGE J. COOMBES
PRINTED BY THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.
TO FREDERICK LOCKER
POET AND LOVER OF BOOKS
_Come and take a choice of all my library_ Titus Andronicus, iv. 1
PREFATORY NOTE. _______________
The poets have ever been lovers of books; indeed, one might ask how should a man be a poet who did not admire a treasure as precious and as beautiful as a book may be. With evident enjoyment, Keats describes
A viol, bowstrings torn, cross-wise upon A glorious folio of Anacreon;
and it was a glorious folio of Beaumont and Fletcher which another English poet (whose most poetic work was done in prose) "dragged home late at night from Barker's in Covent Garden," and to pacify his conscience for the purchase of which he kept to his overworn suit of clothes for four or five weeks longer than he ought. Charles Lamb was a true bibliophile, in the earlier and more exact sense of the term; he loved his ragged volumes as he loved his fellow-men, and he was as intolerant of books that are not books as he was of men who were not manly. He conferred the dukedom of his library on Coleridge, who was no respecter of books, though he could not but enrich them with his marginal notes. Southey and Lord Houghton and Mr. Locker are English poets with libraries of their own, more orderly and far richer than the fortuitous congregation of printed atoms, a mere medley of unrelated tomes, which often masquerades as The Library in the mansions of the noble and the wealthy. Shelley said that he thought Southey had a secret in every one of his books which he was afraid the stranger might discover: but this was probably no more, and no other, than the secret of comfort, consolation, refreshment, and happiness to be found in any library by him who shall bring with him the golden key that unlocks its silent door.
Mr. Lowell has recently dwelt on the difference between literature and books: and, accepting this distinction, the editor desires to declare at once that as a whole this collection is devoted rather to books than to literature. The poems in the following pages celebrate the bric-a-brac of the one rather than the masterpieces of the other. The stanzas here garnered into one sheaf sing of books as books, of books valuable and valued for their perfection of type and page and printing,--for their beauty and for their rarity,--or for their association with some famous man or woman of the storied past
Two centuries and a half ago Drummond of Hawthornden prefixed to the 'Varieties' of his friend Persons a braggart distich:--
This book a world is; here, if errors be, The like, nay worse, in the great world we see.
The present collection of varieties in verse has little or naught to do with the great world and its errors: it has to do chiefly, not to say wholly, with the world of the Bookmen--the little world of the Book-lover, the Bibliophile, the Bibliomaniac--a mad world, my masters, in which there are to be found not a few poets who cherish old wine and old wood, old friends and old books, and who believe that old books are the best of old friends.
Books, books again, and books once more! These are our theme, which some miscall Mere madness, setting little store By copies either short or tall, But you, O slaves of shelf and stall! We rather write for you that hold Patched folios dear, and prize "the small Rare volume, black with burnished gold."
as Mr. Austin Dobson sang on the threshold of Mr. Lang's delightfully discursive little book about the 'Library.'
The editor has much pleasure in thanking the poets who have allowed him to reprint their poems in these pages; and he acknowledges a double debt of gratitude to the friends who have written poems expressly for this collection. Encouraged by their support, and remembering that he is not a contributor to his own pages, the editor ventures to conclude his harmless necessary catalogue of the things contained and not contained within these covers, by quoting Herrick's address to his Book:--
Be bold, my Book, nor be abash'd, or fear, The cutting thumb-nail, or the brow severe; But by the muses swear, all here is good, If but well read, or ill read, understood.
BRANDER MATTHEWS.
NEW YORK, _November_, 1886.
=Proem.=
_BALLADE OF THE BOOKWORM._
_Deep in the Past I peer, and see A Child upon the Nursery floor, A Child with book, upon his knee, Who asks, like Oliver, for more! The number of his years is IV, And yet in Letters hath he skill, How deep he dives in Fairy-lore! The Books I loved, I love them still!_
_One gift the Fairies gave me: (Three They commonly bestowed of yore) The Love of Books, the Golden Key That opens the Enchanted Door; Behind it BLUEBEARD lurks and o'er And o'er doth JACK his Giants kill, And there is all ALADDIN'S store,-- The Books I loved, I love them still!_
_Take all, but leave my Books to me! These heavy creels of old we love We fill not now, nor wander free, Nor wear the heart that once we wore; Not now each River seems to pour His waters from the Muse's hill; Though something's gone from stream and shore, The Books I love, I love them still!_
_ENVOY!_
_Fate, that art Queen by shore and sea, We bow submissive to thy will, Ah grant, by some benign decree, The Books I loved--to love them still._ A. LANG.
=Contents.=
PAGE
_Prefatory Note_ v
PROEM. [1]_Ballade of the Bookworm_ (A. Lang) ix
EDWARD D. ANDERSON. _The Baby in the Library_ 17
FRANCIS BENNOCH. _My Books_ 19
LAMAN BLANCHARD. _The Art of Book-Keeping_ 20
ANNE C. L. BOTTA. _In the Library_ 26
H. C. BUNNER. [1]_My Shakspere_ 28
ROBERT BURNS. _The Bookworms_ 31
CATULLUS. [1]_To his Book_ (Translated by A. Lang) 32
BEVERLY CHEW. _Old Books are best_ 33
THOMAS S. COLLIER. [1]_The Forgotten Books_ 34
HELEN GRAY CONE. _An Invocation in a Library_ 36
SAMUEL DANIEL. _Concerning the Honor of Books_ 38
ISAAC D'ISRAELI. _Lines_ 39
AUSTIN DOBSON. _My Books_ 40
_To a Missal of the Thirteenth Century_ 42
_The Book-Plate's Petition_ 44
HENRY DRURY. _Over the Threshold of my Library_ 46
MAURICE F. EGAN. _The Chrysalis of a Bookworm_ 47
EVENUS. _Epigram_ (Translated by A. Lang) 48
JOHN FERRIAR. _The Bibliomania_ 49
F. FERTIAULT. _Triolet to her Husband_ (Translated by A. Lang) 57
WILLIAM FREELAND. _A Nook and a Book_ 58
EDMUND GOSSE. [1]_The Sultan of my Books_ 60
THOMAS GORDON HAKE. _Our Book-Shelves_ 64
ROBERT HERRICK. _To his Book_ 66
_To his Book_ 67
HORACE. [1]_To his Books_ (Translated by Austin Dobson) 68
LEIGH HUNT. _Sonnet_ 70
WILLIS FLETCHER JOHNSON. _My Books_ 71
BEN JONSON. _To my Bookseller_ 73
_To Sir Henry Goodyere_ 74
CHARLES LAMB. _In the Album of Lucy Barton_ 75
A. LANG. _Ballade of the Book-Hunter_ 77
_Ballade of True Wisdom_ 79
_Ballade of the Bookman's Paradise_ 81
_The Rowfant Books_ 83
_The Rowfant Library_ 85
_Ghosts in the Library_ 87
GEORGE PARSONS LATHROP. [1]_The Book Battalion_ 91
WALTER LEARNED. [1]_On the Fly-Leaf of a Book of Old Plays_ 93
ROBERT LEIGHTON. _Too Many Books_ 95
FREDERICK LOCKER. [1]_From the Fly-Leaf of the Rowfant Montaigne_ 97
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. _My Books_ 98
LORD LYTTON. _The Souls of Books_ 99
COSMO MONKHOUSE. [1]_De Libris_ 105
ARTHUR J. MUNBY. [1]_Ex Libris_ 107
[1]_On an Inscription_ 108
CAROLINE NORTON. _To my Books_ 110
F. M. P. _'Desultory Reading'_ 111
THOMAS PARNELL. _The Bookworm_ 112
SAMUEL MINTURN PECK. _Among my Books_ 116
WALTER HERRIES POLLOCK. [1]_A Ruined Library_ 117
BRYAN WALLER PROCTER (Barry Cornwall). _My Books_ 119
WILLIAM ROSCOE. _To my Books on Parting with Them_ 120
LORD ROSSLYN. _Among my Books_ 121
JOHN GODFREY SAXE. _The Library_ 123
CLINTON SCOLLARD. _In the Library_ 124
FRANK DEMPSTER SHERMAN. _The Book-Hunter_ 126
ROBERT SOUTHEY. _The Library_ 128
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. _Picture-Books in Winter_ 130
RICHARD HENRY STODDARD. _Companions_ 131
RICHARD THOMSON. _The Book of Life_ 133
CHARLES TENNYSON TURNER. _On Certain Books_ 135
HENRY VAUGHAN. _To his Books_ 136
SAMUEL WADDINGTON. [1]_Literature and Nature_ 138
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. _The Library_ 139
TOMAS YRIARTE. _The Country Squire_ 141
ANONYMOUS. _Old Books_ 144
_APPENDIX._
GEORGE CRABBE. _The Library_ 149
A FINAL WORD. [1]_The Collector to his Library_ (Austin Dobson) 173
[1] The poems thus marked were written or translated for the present collection.
=Ballads of Books=
BALLADS OF BOOKS.
THE BABY IN THE LIBRARY.
EDWARD D. ANDERSON. _From 'Wide-Awake' for May, 1885._
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.
But, oh! what liberties she takes 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.' 1878._
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.
A circulating library 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.
My Mallet served to knock me down, 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.
Even Glover's works I cannot put 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.
They took my Horne--and Horne Tooke, too, 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.
But all I think I shall not say, 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; 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.
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 That the work is from the corrected text 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; And turns with a trowel the dark rich mould 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 neglected copy of Shakspere in the_ ROBERT BURNS. _library of a nobleman in Edinburgh, and he wrote these lines on the ample margin of one of its pages, where they were found long after the poet's death._
Through and through the inspired leaves, Ye maggots, make your windings; But oh, respect his lordship's taste, And spare the golden bindings.
CATULLUS TO HIS BOOK.
QVOI DONO LEPIDVM NOVVM LIBELLVM.
CAIUS VALERIUS CATULLUS. _Translated by A. Lang expressly for this collection._
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.
BEVERLY CHEW. _From the 'Critic' of March 13, 1886._
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, All animosities discard, Where old, moth-eaten garments hang.