Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE TRUE BIBLIOPHILE, by ROBERT UNDERWOOD JOHNSON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE TRUE BIBLIOPHILE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: What is a bibliophile? Mere lover
Last Line: The terror of it.
Subject(s): Books; Collectors & Collecting; Reading


WHAT is a bibliophile? Mere lover
Of Whatman page and Mearne-made cover,
Of crushed levant whereround doth hover
A rare aroma?
Whose bookcase, double-locked, affords
Such ancient treasures bound in boards
One has suspicions that it hoards
An MS. Homer?

What is a bibliophile? Mere seeker
For finds to make all rivals meeker --
Now down in Ann Street, now in Bleecker,
To lose no chance
That some neglected shop may show
A fine unopened, pristine Poe,
Flanked by an unfoxed Folio,
With provenance?

What is a bibliophile? Mere sigher
For Trautz, Derome and Payne? A buyer
Of Incunabula by wire,
Or tall Bodoni? --
Who, in his dreams, of sales doth rave,
To others' bidding still a slave,
And oft to many a bookish knave
Who claims him crony?

These things I do not hold as guile;
But must one, as a bibliophile,
Be captive on a treasure isle
And live as lonely?
'T were better not to hoard or spend,
Better to borrow books -- or lend --
And know, like Field's o'er-pitied friend,
Their insides only.

Give me the man who's always finding
His heart imbedded in the binding,
With threads of love about it winding --
A book no longer;
Who laughs with Lever, smiles with Lamb,
Spouts "rare Ben Jonson," or with Sam
Learns to despise the great world's sham,
And so grows stronger.

Ah! though you have all Rosinantes
Were ever drawn for blithe Cervantes,
And all the text of all the Dantes,
'T will little profit
If you shall feel not in the Knight
The pathos of his human plight,
Or share not in the Stygian sight
The terror of it.





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