Ballads of Books Part 3

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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 c.o.ke.

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 cla.s.sics 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 b.u.t.ter 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 n.o.ble train, The gifted and the great.

O child of earth, when round thy path The storms of life arise, And when thy brothers pa.s.s 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 G.o.d-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 st.i.tches are loose and the leaves are torn; And gone is the b.a.s.t.a.r.d-t.i.tle, next To the t.i.tle-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 gra.s.s, I feel The wind that blows from the Canada sh.o.r.e, And in cool, sweet puffs comes stealing o'er, Fresh as any October dawn.

I lie on my breast in the gra.s.s, 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?