Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ON THE SHELF by HENRY AUSTIN DOBSON

Poet Analysis

First Line: I WAS ONCE ON THE TABLE; I'M NOW ON THE SHELF
Last Line: BUT I LIGHT A NEW BEACON. AND THAT IS ENOUGH.
(LIBER LOQUITUR)

'Bouquin de rebut achete au rabais.' -- ALFRED DE MUSSET.

I WAS once on the table; I'm now on the shelf.
Let me give a look round, and take stock for myself.

We are not a large party: an ancient Who's Who
(Grim sepulchre now of some names that were new!);
Spectator, vol. four, and a Scot's Magazine,
With a bulky Burn's Justice wedged tightly between;
The excellent Hanway, his Essay on Tea,
And Rhymes for the Roadway -- by 'Nemo.' That's me!
Naught else but a packet of fish-hooks and floats;
A cracked Toby jug and a sample of oats.

No mortal disturbs our seclusion, save when
Some ruddy-armed handmaid comes now and again
To bang us together, and fill up the cup
By putting us back with the bottom-side up;
Or the Farmer that owns us, when smoking at night,
Will ruthlessly tear out a leaf for a light,
Since the ledge that we live on stands over the settle
Where he nods by the fire-log or blinks at the kettle.

But how did I come here? I came -- as I think --
With a light-hearted tourist who stopped for a drink,
And tested our home-brewed so long on the lawn
That he either forgot me -- or left me in pawn.
The former, I fancy. At end I've a scrawl:
'Price fourpence, and bought at a market-place stall.
Not bad too, as verse -- with a lingering note
That gives you a curious lump in the throat.'

I was one of three hundred. First twenty went off,
'Complimentary copies,' for critics to scoff,
Who were kind, on the whole. Other eighty were sold
(Less so much in the shilling); then, shop-worn and old,
And so for all saleable purposes dead,
We were promptly 'remaindered' at twopence a head.

O impotent close! But, however, you doubt it,
Your twopenny readers are not to be flouted!
For the rich, though they buy, yet they never may need you,
While the poor, if they buy, are quite likely to read you.
And who knows but the laggard who left me behind
May not have been Poet, too, after his kind?

A mute one, perchance, but still ready to snatch
From my numbers the lilt that he hungered to catch;
Or to find, in the verses there writ, without knowing,
That procreant hint which could set him a-going.
Who shall mete the mysterious commerce of souls?
Was the flambeau of Coleridge not kindled by Bowles?
I myself may have failed. You may count me 'poor stuff';
But I light a new beacon. And that is enough.



Home: PoetryExplorer.net