CLOSE at my feet in stolid rows they sit, The grave great tomes that furnish forth my wit; Like reverend oaks they are of Academe, Within whose shade broods science, thought-adream. I honor them and hearken to their lore, And with a formal fondness view them o'er; As ever with the wise, they have the floor! But high on top, all other books above, The precious pocket volumes that I love Forgather, in a Friends' Society Whose silences are pregnant unto me. The poets be there, companions tried and true On many a walk, for many a fireside brew; The golden lays of Greece, the grace urbane Of Roman Horace; or some later strain From lyre Elizabethan, passion-strong; From minnesinger or from master-song; And down the tuneful choirs of nearer days, The chants of Hugo, or the soulful praise Of Wordsworth, tranced among his native fells; The orphic art of Emerson; the wail Of Heine, ever slave to Beauty's spells; The voice of Tennyson in many a musing tale. These and their fellows poise above my head, And at their beck imperious I am led Through all delights of living and of dead. Less weighty, say you? All aerial things That float on fancies or that fly on wings Are small of bulk, and hence soar heaven-high; They have all manner of wild sweet escapes From bonds of earth, and so they do not die As die these grosser, more imprisoned shapes. My upper shelves uphold a mystic crowd, Whose lightest word, though scarcely breathed aloud, Will all outweigh a million folios That groan with wisdom and with scholar-woes, So long as love is love and blooms a sole red rose! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE RUBAIYAT, 1879 EDITION: 100 by OMAR KHAYYAM A CHRISTMAS FOLK-SONG by LIZETTE WOODWORTH REESE THE DEAD HEROES by ISAAC ROSENBERG THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE AT [OR AFTER] CORUNNA by CHARLES WOLFE PEARLS OF THE FAITH: 97. AL-WARITH by EDWIN ARNOLD TWO SONNETS FROM NEW YORK: QUESTIONS by ADELAIDE NICHOLS BAKER |