Ballads of Books Part 13

Ye make the Past our heritage and home: And is this all? No; by each prophet-sage-- No; by the herald souls that Greece and Rome Sent forth, like hymns, to greet the Morning Star That rose on Bethlehem--by thy golden page, Melodious Plato--by thy solemn dreams, World-wearied Tully!--and, above ye all, By THIS, the Everlasting Monument Of G.o.d to mortals, on whose front the beams Flash glory-breathing day--our lights ye are To the dark Bourne beyond; in you are sent The types of Truths whose life is THE TO-COME; In you soars up the Adam from the fall; In you the FUTURE as the PAST is given-- Ev'n in our death ye bid us hail our birth;-- Unfold these pages, and behold the Heaven, Without one gravestone left upon the Earth?

DE LIBRIS.

COSMO MONKHOUSE. _Written for the present collection._

True--there are books and books. There's Gray, For instance, and there's Bacon; There's Longfellow, and Monstrelet, And also Colton's 'Lacon,'

With 'Laws of Whist' and those of Libel, And Euclid, and the Mormon Bible.

And some are dear as friends, and some We keep because we need them; And some we ward from worm and thumb, And love too well to read them.

My own are poor, and mostly new, But I've an Elzevir or two.

That as a gift is prized, the next For trouble in the finding; This Aldine for its early text, That Plantin for the binding; This sorry Herrick hides a flower, The record of one perfect hour.

But whether it be worth or looks We gently love or strongly, Such virtue doth reside in books We scarce can love them wrongly; To sages an eternal school, A hobby (harmless) to the fool.

Nor altogether fool is he Who orders, free from doubt, Those books which "no good library Should ever be without,"

And blandly locks the well-glazed door On tomes that issue never more.

Less may we scorn his cases grand, 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 companions.h.i.+p 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 s.p.a.ce 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 hinged 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 G.o.ds.

Him frantic hunger wildly drives Against a thousand authors' lives: Through all the fields of wit he flies; Dreadful his head with cl.u.s.tering 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 pa.s.sage 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.