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.

he 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.

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.

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:

Music that lifts the thought from trodden places,
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
of Florio's Montaigne, 1613, is
Samuel Daniel. generally attributed to the translator,
but the best critics now incline
to the belief that it is by his friend,
Daniel.

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
of the library at Copenhagen.

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 Burton I bought for a florin,
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,
Or in secret coign entwist
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
Queries,' January 8, 1881.

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.

This was a Scholar, one of those
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,
Sept. 31, 1792.

OVER THE THRESHOLD OF MY LIBRARY.

Quoted from the supplement of Dibdin's
Henry Drury. 'Bibliomania,' where the original
Latin lines may be found.

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
in the 'Library.' 1881.

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."
Manchester, April, 1809.

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 [2] tell,
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;
Faustus for you infernal tortures bore,
For you Erasmus [3] starv'd on Adria's shore.
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.
He turns where Pybus rears his Atlas-head,
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. [4]

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 [5] back to light.
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.
Yet to th' unhonor'd dead be Satire just;
Some flow'rs [6] "smell sweet and blossom in their dust."
'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 [7] beheld,
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, [8] whom chief the laughing Muses own,
Yet skill'd with softest accents to bemoan
Sweet Philomel [9] in strains so like her own.

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, [10] ye alone remain
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. [11]

Taste, tho' misled, may yet some purpose gain,
But Fashion guides a book-compelling train. [12]
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;[13]
Taught the gay croud to prize a fluttering name,
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
[14] The gallant Veres, and one-eyed Ogle brave.
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:
Ev'n I, debarr'd of ease, and studious hours,
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 [15] terse and classic style,
His harmless tales awake a transient smile.
Now Bouchet's motley stores my thoughts arrest,
With wond'rous reading, and with learned jest.
Bouchet [16] whose tomes a grateful line demand,
The valued gift of Stanley's lib'ral hand.
Now sadly pleased, through faded Rome I stray,
And mix regrets with gentle Du Bellay; [17]
Or turn, with keen delight, the curious page,
Where hardy Pasquin [18] braves the Pontiff's rage.

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."
Through wintry blasts, or summer's fire I go,
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, [19]
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
the 'Library.' 1881.

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
Poems.' 1882.

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,
Glorious without slaying or sinning.
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;
There are artisans' flats, fit
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 Sandys, a real jewel!
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):
My poets from slumber
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.

What solace would those books afford,
In gold and vellum cover,
Could men but say them word for word
Who never turn them over!

Books that must know themselves by heart
As by endowment vital,
Could they their truths to us impart
Not stopping with the title!

Line after line their wisdom flows,
Page after page repeating;
Yet never on our ears bestows
A single sound of greeting.

As thus they lie upon the shelves,
Such wisdom in their pages,
Do they rehearse it to themselves,
Or rest like silent sages?

One book we know such fun invokes,
As well were worth the telling:
Must it not chuckle o'er the jokes
That it is ever spelling?

And for the Holy Bible there,
It greets us with mild teaching;
Though no one its contents may hear,
Does it not go on preaching?

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
Q. Horatius Flaccus. 'Epistles,' i. 20, for the present
collection.

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,
Be fretted of slow moths, unread,
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
Leigh Hunt. the London 'Examiner' of December
24, 1815, and not anywhere included
in the poet's collected works.

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,
Cowering from each statelier book
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
Ben Jonson. of epigrams. Bucklersbury was the
street most affected by grocers and
apothecaries.

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
book of epigrams, and, like its immediate
Ben Jonson. predecessor, it was addressed
to a gentleman bound in bonds of
friendship to many of the men of
genius of his time.

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.