Ballads of Books Part 14

Bring Homer, Virgil, Ta.s.so 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 ma.n.u.scripts 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 G.o.ds! 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 h.e.l.l.

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 cla.s.sic 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 Caesar dead and turn'd to clay Might stop a hole to keep the wind away."

Here the live thought of buried Caesar's brain Has served a lazy s.l.u.t 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 Jacobaea;'

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 sc.r.a.ps 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-h.e.l.l.

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, a.s.sembling 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 a.s.sociates! 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 pa.s.s a few short years, or days, or hours.

And happier seasons may their dawn unfold, And all your sacred fellows.h.i.+p 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 Sh.o.r.e.

THE LIBRARY.

_One of the excerpts from 'Occasional_ JOHN G.o.dFREY SAXE. _Poems' included in his 'Complete Poems.'_

Here, e'en the st.u.r.dy democrat may find, Nor scorn their rank, the n.o.bles of the mind; While kings may learn, nor blush at being shown, How Learning's patents abrogate their own.