I lent my love a book one day;
She brought it back; I laid it by:
'Twas little either had to say,--
She was so strange, and I so shy.
But yet we loved indifferent things,--
The sprouting buds, the birds in tune,--
And Time stood still and wreathed his wings
With rosy links from June to June.
For her, what task to dare or do?
What peril tempt? What hardship bear?
But with her--ah! she never knew
My heart, and what was hidden there!
And she with me, so cold and coy,
Seemed like a maid bereft of sense;
But in the crowd, all life and joy,
And full of blushful impudence.
She married,--well, a woman needs
Someone, her life and love to share,--
And little cares sprang up like weeds
And played around her elbow-chair.
Years rolled by--and I, content,
Trimmed my own lamp, and kept it bright,
Till age's touch, my hair besprent
With rays and gleams of silver light.
And then it chanced I took the book
Which she perused in days gone by;
And as I read, such passion shook,
That, I needs must surely cry.
For, here and there, her love was writ,
In old, half-faded pencil-signs,
As if she yielded--bit by bit--
Her heart in dots and underlines.
Ah, silvered fool, too late you look!
I know it; but let me here record
This maxim: Lend no girl a book
Unless you read it afterward!
--_F. S. Cozzens._
130
We should make the same use of a book that the bee does of a flower; she
steals sweets from it, but does not injure it.
--_Colton._
131
Be as careful of the books you read, as of the company you keep; for
your habits and character will be as much influenced by the former as
the latter.
132