Where safely, surely linger
Fair virgin fields of type, unscanned
And innocent of finger.
There rest, preserved from dust accurst,
The first editions--and the worst.
And least of all should we that write
With easy jest deride them,
Who hope to leave when "lost to sight"
The best of us inside them,
Dear shrines! where many a scribbler's name
Has lasted--longer than his fame.
EX LIBRIS.
ARTHUR J. MUNBY. _Written for the present collection._
Man that is born of woman finds a charm
In that which he is born of. She it is
Who moulds him with a frown or with a kiss
To good or ill, to welfare or to harm:
But, when he has attain'd her soft round arm
And drawn it through his own, and made her his,
He through her eyes beholds a wider bliss,
As sweet as that she gives him, and as warm.
What bliss? We dare not name it: her fond looks
Are jealous too; she hardly understands,
Girt by her children's laughter or their cries,
The stately smooth companionship of books:
And yet to her we owe it, to her hands
And to her heart, that books can make us wise.
ON AN INSCRIPTION.
"_Edward Danenhill: Book given him
by Joseph Wise, April ye 27th, 1741,"_
ARTHUR J. MUNBY. _was the inscription in a copy of Carew's
'Poems' (1651). Written for
the present collection._
A man unknown this volume gave,
So long since, to his unknown friend,
Ages ago, their lives had end,
And each in some obscurest grave
Lies mixt with earth: none now would care
To ask or who or what they were.
But, though these two are underground,
Their book is here, all safe and sound;
And he who wrote it (yea, and more
Than a whole hundred years before)
He, the trim courtier, old Carew,
And all the loves he feign'd or knew,
Have won from Aphrodite's eye
Some show of immortality.
'Tis ever thus; by Nature's will
The gift outlasts the giver still;
And Love itself lives not so long
As doth a lover's feeblest song.
But doubly hard is that man's case,
For whom and for his earnest rhymes
Neither his own nor after-times
Have any work, have any place:
Who through a hundred years shall find
No echoing voice, no answering mind;
And, when this tann'd and tawny page
Has one more century of age,
And others buy the book anew,
Because they care for old Carew,
Not one who reads shall care or know
What name was his, who owns it now:
But all he wrote and all he did
Shall be in such oblivion hid
As hides the blurr'd and broken stones
That cover his forgotten bones.
TO MY BOOKS.
CAROLINE NORTON. _From the 'Dream and other Poems.' 1840._
Silent companions of the lonely hour,
Friends, who can never alter or forsake,
Who for inconstant roving have no power,
And all neglect, perforce, must calmly take,
Let me return to YOU; this turmoil ending
Which worldly cares have in my spirit wrought,
And, o'er your old familiar pages bending,
Refresh my mind with many a tranquil thought;
Till, haply meeting there, from time to time,
Fancies, the audible echo of my own,
'T will be like hearing in a foreign clime
My native language spoke in friendly tone,
And with a sort of welcome I shall dwell
On these, my unripe musings, told so well.
'DESULTORY READING.'
F. M. P. _From the London 'Spectator' of January 16, 1886._
O finest essence of delicious rest!
To bid for some short space the busy mill
Of anxious, ever-grinding thought be still;
And let the weary brain and throbbing breast
Be by another's cooling hand caressed.
This volume in my hand, I hold a charm
Which lifts me out of reach of wrong or harm.
I sail away from trouble; and most blessed
Of every blessing, can myself forget:
Can rise above the instance low and poor
Into the mighty law that governs yet.
This hingèd cover, like a well hung door,
Shuts out the noises of the jangling day,
These fair leaves fan unwelcome thoughts away.
THE BOOKWORM.
THOMAS PARNELL. _Translated from the Latin of Theodore Beza._
Come hither, boy, we'll hunt to-day
The bookworm, ravening beast of prey,
Produc'd by parent Earth, at odds,
As fame reports it, with the gods.
Him frantic hunger wildly drives
Against a thousand authors' lives:
Through all the fields of wit he flies;
Dreadful his head with clustering eyes,
With horns without, and tusks within,
And scales to serve him for a skin.
Observe him nearly, lest he climb
To wound the bards of ancient time,
Or down the vale of fancy go
To tear some modern wretch below.
On every corner fix thine eye,
Or ten to one he slips thee by.
See where his teeth a passage eat:
We'll rouse him from his deep retreat.
But who the shelter's forc'd to give?
'Tis sacred Virgil, as I live!
From leaf to leaf, from song to song
He draws the tadpole form along,
He mounts the gilded edge before,
He's up, he scuds the cover o'er,
He turns, he doubles, there he past,
And here we have him, caught at last.
Insatiate brute, whose teeth abuse
The sweetest servants of the Muse--
Nay, never offer to deny,
I took thee in the fact to fly.
His rose nipt in every page,
My poor Anacreon mourns thy rage;
By thee my Ovid wounded lies;
By thee my Lesbia's Sparrow dies;
Thy rabid teeth have half destroy'd
The work of love in Biddy Floyd;
They rent Belinda's locks away,
And spoil'd the Blouzelind of Gay.
For all, for every single deed,
Relentless justice bids thee bleed:
Then fall a victim to the Nine
Myself the priest, my desk the shrine.
Bring Homer, Virgil, Tasso near,
To pile a sacred altar here:
Hold, boy, thy hand outruns thy wit,
You reach'd the plays that Dennis writ;
You reach'd me Philips' rustic strain;
Pray take your mortal bards again.
Come, bind the victim,--there he lies,
And here between his numerous eyes
This venerable dust I lay
From manuscripts just swept away.
The goblet in my hand I take,
For the libation's yet to make:
A health to poets! all their days
May they have bread, as well as praise;
Sense may they seek, and less engage
In papers fill'd with party rage.
But if their riches spoil their vein,
Ye Muses, make them poor again.
Now bring the weapon, yonder blade
With which my tuneful pens are made.
I strike the scales that arm thee round,
And twice and thrice I print the wound;
The sacred altar floats with red,
And now he dies, and now he's dead.
How like the son of Jove I stand,
This Hydra stretch'd beneath the hand!
Lay bare the monster's entrails here,
And see what dangers threat the year:
Ye gods! what sonnet on a wench!
What lean translations out of French!
'Tis plain, this lobe is so unsound,
S--prints, before the months go round.
But hold, before I close the scene
The sacred altar should be clean.
O had I Shadwell's second bays,
Or, Tate, thy pert and humble lays!
(Ye pair, forgive me, when I vow
I never miss'd your works till now,)
I'd tear the leaves to wipe the shrine,
That only way you please the Nine:
But since I chance to want these two,
I'll make the songs of Durfey do.
Rent from the corps, on yonder pin,
I hang the scales that brac'd it in;
I hang my studious morning gown,
And write my own inscription down.
"This trophy from the Python won,
This robe, in which the deed was done,
These, Parnell, glorying in the feat
Hung on these shelves, the Muses seat.
Here Ignorance and Hunger found
Large realms of wit to ravage round;
Here Ignorance and Hunger fell
Two foes in one I sent to hell.
Ye poets who my labors see
Come share the triumph all with me!
Ye critics, born to vex the Muse,
Go mourn the grand ally you lose!"
AMONG MY BOOKS.
SAMUEL MINTURN PECK. _From 'Cap and Bells.' 1886._
Among my books--what rest is there
From wasting woes! what balm for care!
If ills appall or clouds hang low,
And drooping, dim the fleeting show,
I revel still in visions rare.
At will I breathe the classic air,
The wanderings of Ulysses share;
Or see the plume of Bayard flow
Among my books.
Whatever face the world may wear--
If Lillian has no smile to spare,
For others let her beauty blow,
Such favors I can well forego;
Perchance forget the frowning fair
Among my books.
A RUINED LIBRARY.
WALTER HERRIES POLLOCK. _Written for the present collection._
"Imperious Cæsar dead and turn'd to clay
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away."
Here the live thought of buried Cæsar's brain
Has served a lazy slut to lay the train
That lights a dunce's fire. Here Homer's seen
All torn or crumpled in the pettish spleen
Of some spoilt urchin. Here a leaf from Glanvil
Is reft to mark a place in 'On the Anvil.'
Here, too, a heavy-blotted Shakspere's page
Holds up an inky mirror to the age;
Here looking round you're but too sure to see a
Heart-breaking wreck from the 'Via Jacobæa;'
Here some rare pamphlet, long a-missing, lurks
In an odd volume of 'Lord Bacon's Works;'
Here may you find a Stillingfleet or Blair
Usurp the binding of a lost Voltaire;
And here a tattered Boyle doth gape ungently
Upon a damp-disfigured 'Life of Bentley.'
Here half a Rabelais jostles for position
The quarter of a 'Spanish Inquisition;'
Here Young's 'Night Thoughts' lie mixed with Swinburne's 'Ballads'
'Mid scraps of works on Poisons and on Salads;
And here a rent and gilt-edged Sterne doth lack a ray
Of sun that falls upon a bulging Thackeray;
Here--but the tale's too sad at length to tell
How a book-heaven's been turned to a book-hell.
MY BOOKS.
BRYAN WALLER PROCTER. _From 'An Autobiographical_
(BARRY CORNWALL.) _Fragment.' 1877._
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;
All 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.
O friends, whom chance and 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 whereso'er it goes,
Whether....
TO MY BOOKS ON PARTING WITH THEM.
_The sale of the famous Roscoe library,
made necessary by reverses in business,_
WILLIAM ROSCOE. _took place in August and September, 1816._
As one who, destined from his friends to part,
Regrets his loss, yet hopes again erewhile,
To share their converse and enjoy their smile,
And tempers as he may affliction's dart,--
Thus, loved associates! chiefs of elder Art!
Teachers of wisdom! who could once beguile
My tedious hours, and lighten every toil,
I now resign you; nor with fainting heart;
For pass a few short years, or days, or hours.
And happier seasons may their dawn unfold,
And all your sacred fellowship restore;
When, freed from earth, unlimited its powers,
Mind shall with mind direct communion hold,
And kindred spirits meet to part no more.
AMONG MY BOOKS.
FRANCIS ST. CLAIR-ERSKINE, _From 'Sonnets.' 1883._
EARL OF ROSSLYN.
Alone, 'midst living works of mighty dead,
Poets and Scholars versed in history's lore,
With thoughts that reached beyond them and before,
I dream, and leave their glorious works unread;
Their greatness numbs me both in heart and head.
I cannot weep with Petrarch, and still more
I fail when I would delve the depths of yore,
And learn old Truths of modern lies instead;
The shelves frown on me blackly, with a life
That ne'er can die, and helpless to begin,
I can but own my weakness, and deplore
This waste, this barren brain, ah! once so rife
With hope and fancy. Pardon all my sin,
Great Ghosts that wander on the Eternal Shore.
THE LIBRARY.
_One of the excerpts from 'Occasional_
JOHN GODFREY SAXE. _Poems' included in his 'Complete Poems.'_
Here, e'en the sturdy democrat may find,
Nor scorn their rank, the nobles of the mind;
While kings may learn, nor blush at being shown,
How Learning's patents abrogate their own.
A goodly company and fair to see;
Royal plebeians; earls of low degree;
Beggars whose wealth enriches every clime;
Princes who scarce can boast a mental dime;
Crowd here together like the quaint array
Of jostling neighbors on a market day.
Homer and Milton,--can we call them blind?--
Of godlike sight, the vision of the mind;
Shakspere, who calmly looked creation through,
"Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new;"
Plato the sage, so thoughtful and serene,
He seems a prophet by his heavenly mien;
Shrewd Socrates, whose philosophic power
Xantippe proved in many a trying hour;
And Aristophanes, whose humor run
In vain endeavor to be-"cloud" the sun;
Majestic Æschylus, whose glowing page
Holds half the grandeur of the Athenian stage;
Pindar, whose odes, replete with heavenly fire,
Proclaim the master of the Grecian lyre;
Anacreon, famed for many a luscious line
Devote to Venus and the god of wine.
I love vast libraries; yet there is a doubt
If one be better with them or without,--
Unless he use them wisely, and indeed,
Knows the high art of what and how to read,
At learning's fountain it is sweet to drink,
But 'tis a nobler privilege to think;
And oft from books apart, the thirsting mind
May make the nectar which it cannot find,
'T is well to borrow from the good and great;
'T is wise to learn; 't is godlike to create!
IN THE LIBRARY.
CLINTON SCOLLARD. _From 'With Reed and Lyre.' 1886._
From the oriels one by one,
Slowly fades the setting sun;
On the marge of afternoon
Stands the new-born crescent moon.
In the twilight's crimson glow
Dim the quiet alcoves grow.
Drowsy-lidded Silence smiles
On the long deserted aisles;
Out of every shadowy nook
Spirit faces seem to look.
Some with smiling eyes, and some
With a sad entreaty dumb;
He who shepherded his sheep
On the wild Sicilian steep,
He above whose grave are set
Sprays of Roman violet;
Poets, sages--all who wrought
In the crucible of thought.
Day by day as seasons glide
On the great eternal tide,
Noiselessly they gather thus
In the twilight beauteous,
Hold communion each with each,
Closer than our earthly speech,
Till within the east are born
Premonitions of the morn!
THE BOOK-HUNTER.
FRANK DEMPSTER SHERMAN. _From the 'Century Magazine,'
November, 1885._
A cup of coffee, eggs, and rolls
Sustain him on his morning strolls:
Unconscious of the passers-by,
He trudges on with downcast eye;
He wears a queer old hat and coat,
Suggestive of a style remote;
His manner is preoccupied,--
A shambling gait, from side to side.
For him the sleek, bright-windowed shop
Is all in vain,--he does not stop.
His thoughts are fixed on dusty shelves
Where musty volumes hide themselves,--
Rare prints of poetry and prose,
And quaintly lettered folios,--
Perchance a parchment manuscript,
In some forgotten corner slipped,
Or monk-illumined missal bound
In vellum with brass clasps around;
These are the pictured things that throng
His mind the while he walks along.
A dingy street, a cellar dim,
With book-lined walls, suffices him.
The dust is white upon his sleeves;
He turns the yellow, dog-eared leaves
With just the same religious look
That priests give to the Holy Book.
He does not heed the stifling air
If so he find a treasure there.
He knows rare books, like precious wines,
Are hidden where the sun ne'er shines;
For him delicious flavors dwell
In books as in old Muscatel;
He finds in features of the type
A clew to prove the grape was ripe.
And when he leaves this dismal place,
Behold, a smile lights up his face!
Upon his cheeks a genial glow,--
Within his hand Boccaccio,
A first edition worn with age,
"Firenze" on the title-page.
THE LIBRARY.
ROBERT SOUTHEY. _Written at Keswick in 1818._
My days among the Dead are past;
Around me I behold,
Where'er these casual eyes are cast,
The mighty minds of old;
My never-failing friends are they,
With whom I converse day by day.
With them I take delight in weal,
And seek relief in woe;
And while I understand and feel
How much to them I owe,
My cheeks have often been dedew'd
With tears of thoughtful gratitude.
My thoughts are with the Dead, with them
I live in long-past years,
Their virtues love, their faults condemn;
Partake their hopes and fears,
And from their lessons seek and find
Instruction with an humble mind.
My hopes are with the Dead, anon
My place with them shall be,
And I with them shall travel on
Through all futurity;
Yet leaving here a name, I trust,
That will not perish in the dust.
PICTURE-BOOKS IN WINTER.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. _From 'A Child's Garden of Verses.' 1885._
Summer fading, winter comes--
Frosty mornings, tingling thumbs,
Window robins, winter rooks,
And the picture story-books.
Water now is turned to stone
Nurse and I can walk upon;
Still we find the flowing brooks
And the picture story-books.
All the pretty things put by,
Wait upon the children's eye
Sheep and shepherds, trees and crooks,
In the picture story-books.
We may see how all things are,
Seas and cities, near and far,
And the flying fairies' looks,
In the picture story-books.
How am I to sing your praise,
Happy chimney-corner days,
Sitting safe in nursery nooks,
Reading picture story-books?
COMPANIONS.
A French writer (whom I love well) speaks of three kinds of
companions, men, women, and books.
SIR JOHN DAVYS.
RICHARD HENRY STODDARD. _From the 'Atlantic Monthly,' June, 1877._
We have companions, comrade mine:
Jolly good fellows, tried and true,
Are filling their cups with the Rhenish wine,
And pledging each other, as I do you.
Never a man in all the land
But has, in his hour of need, a friend,
Who stretches to him a helping hand
And stands by him to the bitter end.
If not before, there is comfort then,
In the strong companionship of men.
But better than that, old friend of mine,
Is the love of woman, the life of life,
Whether in maiden's eyes it shine,
Or melts in the tender kiss of wife;
A heart contented to feel, not know,
That finds in the other its sole delight;
White hands that are loath to let us go,
The tenderness that is more than might!
On earth below, in heaven above,
Is there anything better than woman's love?
I do not say so, companion mine,
For what, without it, would I be here?
It lightens my troubles, like this good wine,
And, if I must weep, sheds tear for tear!
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;
Through these they speak to us what was best
In the loving heart and the noble mind:
All their royal souls possessed
Belongs forever to all mankind!
When others fail him, the wise man looks
To the sure companionship of books.
THE BOOK OF LIFE.
_A Bibliographical Melody, printed in_
RICHARD THOMSON. _1820 at the press of John Johnson, as
a gift to the members of the Roxburghe
Club._
That Life is a Comedy oft hath been shown,
By all who Mortality's changes have known;
But more like a Volume its actions appear,
Where each Day is a Page and each Chapter a year.
'Tis a Manuscript Time shall full surely unfold,
Though with Black-Letter shaded, or shining with gold;
The Initial, like Youth, glitters bright on its Page,
But its Text is as dark--as the gloom of Old Age.
Then Life's Counsels of Wisdom engrave on thy breast,
And deep on thine Heart be her lessons imprest.
Though the Title stands first it can little declare
The Contents which the Pages ensuing shall bear;
As little the first day of Life can explain
The succeeding events which shall glide in its train,
The Book follows next, and, delighted, we trace
An Elzevir's beauty, a Guttemberg's grace;
Thus on pleasure we gaze with as raptured an eye,
Till, cut off like a Volume imperfect, we die!
Then Life's Counsels of Wisdom engrave on thy breast,
And deep on thine Heart be her lessons imprest.
Yet e'en thus imperfect, complete, or defaced,
The skill of the Printer is still to be traced;
And though death bend us early in life to his will,
The wise hand of our Author is visible still.
Like the Colophon lines is the Epitaph's lay,
Which tells of what age and what nation our day,
And, like the Device of the Printer, we bear
The form of the Founder, whose Image we wear.
Then Life's Counsels of Wisdom engrave on thy breast,
And deep on thine Heart be her lessons imprest.
The work thus completed its Boards shall inclose,
Till a Binding more bright and more beauteous it shows;
And who can deny, when Life's Vision hath past,
That the dark Boards of Death shall surround us at last.
Yet our Volume illumed with fresh splendors shall rise,
To be gazed at by Angels, and read to the skies,
Reviewed by its Author, revised by his Pen,
In a fair new Edition to flourish again.
Then Life's Counsels of Wisdom engrave on thy breast,
And deep on thine Heart be her lessons imprest.
ON CERTAIN BOOKS.
CHARLES TENNYSON TURNER. _From 'Sonnets.' 1864._
Faith and fixt hope these pages may peruse,
And still be faith and hope; but, O ye winds!
Blow them far off from all unstable minds,
And foolish grasping hands of youth! Ye dews
Of heaven! be pleased to rot them where they fall,
Lest loitering boys their fancies should abuse,
And they get harm by chance, that cannot choose;
So be they stain'd and sodden, each and all!
And if, perforce, on dry and gusty days,
Upon the breeze some truant leaf should rise,
Brittle with many weathers, to the skies,
Or flit and dodge about the public ways--
Man's choral shout, or organ's peal of praise
Shall shake it into dust, like older lies.
TO HIS BOOKS.
HENRY VAUGHAN. _From 'Silex Scintillans: Sacred Poems
and Pious Ejaculations.' 1678._
Bright books: perspectives on our weak sights,
The clear projections of discerning lights,
Burning in shining thoughts, man's posthume day,
The track of fled souls in their milkie way,
The dead alive and busy, the still voice
Of enlarged spirits, kind heaven's white decoys!
Who lives with you lives like those knowing flowers
Which in commerce with light spend all their hours;
Which shut to clouds, and shadows nicely shun,
But with glad haste unveil to kiss the sun.
Beneath you all is dark and a dead night,
Which whoso lives in wants both health and sight.
By sucking you, the wise, like bees, do grow
Healing and rich, though this they do most slow,
Because most choicely; for as great a store
Have we of books as bees, of herbs, or more;
And the great task to try, then know, the good,
To discern weeds, and judge of wholesome food,
Is a rare scant performance. For man dies
Oft ere 'tis done, while the bee feeds and flies.
But you were all choice flowers; all set and drest
By old sage florists, who well knew the best;
And I amidst you all am turned to weed!
Not wanting knowledge, but for want of heed.
Then thank thyself, wild fool, that would'st not be
Content to know what was too much for thee!
LITERATURE AND NATURE.
SAMUEL WADDINGTON. _Written for the present collection._
'Mid Cambrian heights around Dolgelly vale,
What time we scaled great Cader's rugged pile,
Or loitered idly where still meadows smile
Beside the Mawddach-stream, or far Cynfael--
Nor tome, nor rhythmic page, nor pastoral tale,
Our summer-sated senses would beguile;
Or lull our ears to melody, the while
The voiceful rill ran lilting down the dale.
In London town once more--behold, once more
The old delight returns! 'Mid heights how vast,
In Milton's verse, through what dim paths we wind;
How Keats's canvas glows, and Wordsworth's lore,
As tarn or torrent pure, by none surpass'd,
Sheds light and love--unfathomed, undefined.
THE LIBRARY.
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. _Sung at the opening of the
Library at Haverhill, Mass._
"Let there be Light!" God spake of old,
And over chaos dark and cold,
And through the dead and formless frame
Of nature, life and order came.
Faint was the light at first that shone
On giant fern and mastodon,
On half-formed plant and beast of prey,
And man as rude and wild as they.
Age after age, like waves o'erran
The earth, uplifting brute and man;
And mind, at length, in symbols dark
Its meanings traced on stone and bark.
On leaf of palm, on sedge-wrought roll,
On plastic clay and leathern scroll,
Man wrote his thoughts; the ages passed,
And lo! the Press was found at last!
Then dead souls woke; the thoughts of men
Whose bones were dust revived again;
The cloister's silence found a tongue,
Old prophets spake, old poets sung.
And here, to-day, the dead look down,
The kings of mind again we crown;
We hear the voices lost so long,
The sage's word, the sibyl's song.