Ballads Of Books
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Frontispiece
Ballads of Books
CHOSEN BY
BRANDER MATTHEWS
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NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1900
Copyright, 1886
By George J. Coombes
Printed by
The University Press, Cambridge, U. S. A.
To
FREDERICK LOCKER
POET AND LOVER OF BOOKS
Come and take a choice of all my library
Titus Andronicus, iv. 1
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Angels with book
PREFATORY NOTE.
T
he poets have ever been lovers of
books; indeed, one might ask how
should a man be a poet who did
not admire a treasure as precious
and as beautiful as a book may be.
With evident enjoyment, Keats describes
A viol, bowstrings torn, cross-wise upon
A glorious folio of Anacreon;
and it was a glorious folio of Beaumont and Fletcher
which another English poet (whose most poetic work
was done in prose) "dragged home late at night from
Barker's in Covent Garden," and to pacify his conscience
for the purchase of which he kept to his overworn
suit of clothes for four or five weeks longer
than he ought. Charles Lamb was a true bibliophile,
in the earlier and more exact sense of the term; he
loved his ragged volumes as he loved his fellow-men,
and he was as intolerant of books that are not books
as he was of men who were not manly. He conferred
the dukedom of his library on Coleridge, who
was no respecter of books, though he could not but
enrich them with his marginal notes. Southey and
Lord Houghton and Mr. Locker are English poets
with libraries of their own, more orderly and far
richer than the fortuitous congregation of printed
atoms, a mere medley of unrelated tomes, which often
masquerades as The Library in the mansions of the
noble and the wealthy. Shelley said that he thought
Southey had a secret in every one of his books which
he was afraid the stranger might discover: but this
was probably no more, and no other, than the secret
of comfort, consolation, refreshment, and happiness
to be found in any library by him who shall
bring with him the golden key that unlocks its silent
door.
Mr. Lowell has recently dwelt on the difference
between literature and books: and, accepting this
distinction, the editor desires to declare at once that
as a whole this collection is devoted rather to books
than to literature. The poems in the following pages
celebrate the bric-a-brac of the one rather than the
masterpieces of the other. The stanzas here garnered
into one sheaf sing of books as books, of
books valuable and valued for their perfection of
type and page and printing,—for their beauty and
for their rarity,—or for their association with some
famous man or woman of the storied past
Two centuries and a half ago Drummond of Hawthornden
prefixed to the 'Varieties' of his friend
Persons a braggart distich:—
This book a world is; here, if errors be,
The like, nay worse, in the great world we see.
The present collection of varieties in verse has little
or naught to do with the great world and its errors:
it has to do chiefly, not to say wholly, with the world
of the Bookmen—the little world of the Book-lover,
the Bibliophile, the Bibliomaniac—a mad world, my
masters, in which there are to be found not a few
poets who cherish old wine and old wood, old
friends and old books, and who believe that old
books are the best of old friends.
Books, books again, and books once more!
These are our theme, which some miscall
Mere madness, setting little store
By copies either short or tall,
But you, O slaves of shelf and stall!
We rather write for you that hold
Patched folios dear, and prize "the small
Rare volume, black with burnished gold."
as Mr. Austin Dobson sang on the threshold of Mr.
Lang's delightfully discursive little book about the
'Library.'
The editor has much pleasure in thanking the
poets who have allowed him to reprint their poems
in these pages; and he acknowledges a double debt
of gratitude to the friends who have written poems
expressly for this collection. Encouraged by their
support, and remembering that he is not a contributor
to his own pages, the editor ventures to conclude
his harmless necessary catalogue of the things contained
and not contained within these covers, by
quoting Herrick's address to his Book:—
Be bold, my Book, nor be abash'd, or fear,
The cutting thumb-nail, or the brow severe;
But by the muses swear, all here is good,
If but well read, or ill read, understood.
BRANDER MATTHEWS.
New York, November, 1886.
Scroll and quill pens
Books
BALLADE OF THE BOOKWORM.
Deep in the Past I peer, and see
A Child upon the Nursery floor,
A Child with book, upon his knee,
Who asks, like Oliver, for more!
The number of his years is IV,
And yet in Letters hath he skill,
How deep he dives in Fairy-lore!
The Books I loved, I love them still!
One gift the Fairies gave me: (Three
They commonly bestowed of yore)
The Love of Books, the Golden Key
That opens the Enchanted Door;
Behind it BLUEBEARD lurks and o'er
And o'er doth JACK his Giants kill,
And there is all ALADDIN'S store,—
The Books I loved, I love them still!
Take all, but leave my Books to me!
These heavy creels of old we love
We fill not now, nor wander free,
Nor wear the heart that once we wore;
Not now each River seems to pour
His waters from the Muse's hill;
Though something's gone from stream and shore,
The Books I love, I love them still!
ENVOY!
Fate, that art Queen by shore and sea,
We bow submissive to thy will,
Ah grant, by some benign decree,
The Books I loved—to love them still.
A. Lang.
Books
Pegasus
Contents.
| |
Page |
| Prefatory Note |
v |
| Proem.
[1]
Ballade of the Bookworm (A. Lang) |
ix |
| Edward D. Anderson. The Baby in the Library |
17 |
| Francis Bennoch. My Books |
19 |
| Laman Blanchard. The Art of Book-Keeping |
20 |
| Anne C. L. Botta. In the Library |
26 |
| H. C. Bunner. [1] My Shakspere |
28 |
| Robert Burns. The Bookworms |
31 |
| Catullus. [1] To his Book (Translated by A. Lang) |
32 |
| Beverly Chew. Old Books are best |
33 |
| Thomas S. Collier. [1] The Forgotten Books |
34 |
| Helen Gray Cone. An Invocation in a Library |
36 |
| Samuel Daniel. Concerning the Honor of Books |
38 |
|
Isaac D'israeli. Lines |
39 |
| Austin Dobson. My Books |
40 |
| To a Missal of the Thirteenth Century |
42 |
| The Book-Plate's Petition |
44 |
| Henry Drury. Over the Threshold of my Library |
46 |
| Maurice F. Egan. The Chrysalis of a Bookworm |
47 |
| Evenus. Epigram (Translated by A. Lang) |
48 |
| John Ferriar. The Bibliomania |
49 |
| F. Fertiault. Triolet to her Husband (Translated by A. Lang) |
57 |
| William Freeland. A Nook and a Book |
58 |
| Edmund Gosse. [1] The Sultan of my Books |
60 |
| Thomas Gordon Hake. Our Book-Shelves |
64 |
| Robert Herrick. To his Book |
66 |
| To his Book |
67 |
| Horace. [1] To his Books (Translated by Austin Dobson) |
68 |
| Leigh Hunt. Sonnet |
70 |
| Willis Fletcher Johnson. My Books |
71 |
| Ben Jonson. To my Bookseller |
73 |
| To Sir Henry Goodyere |
74 |
| Charles Lamb. In the Album of Lucy Barton |
75 |
| A. Lang. Ballade of the Book-Hunter |
77 |
| Ballade of True Wisdom |
79 |
| Ballade of the Bookman's Paradise |
81 |
| The Rowfant Books |
83 |
| The Rowfant Library |
85 |
| Ghosts in the Library |
87 |
|
George Parsons Lathrop. [1] The Book Battalion |
91 |
| Walter Learned. [1] On the Fly-Leaf of a Book of Old Plays |
93 |
| Robert Leighton. Too Many Books |
95 |
| Frederick Locker. [1] From the Fly-Leaf of the Rowfant Montaigne |
97 |
| Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. My Books |
98 |
| Lord Lytton. The Souls of Books |
99 |
| Cosmo Monkhouse. [1] De Libris |
105 |
| Arthur J. Munby. [1] Ex Libris |
107 |
| [1] On an Inscription |
108 |
| Caroline Norton. To my Books |
110 |
| F. M. P. 'Desultory Reading' |
111 |
| Thomas Parnell. The Bookworm |
112 |
| Samuel Minturn Peck. Among my Books |
116 |
| Walter Herries Pollock. [1] A Ruined Library |
117 |
| Bryan Waller Procter (Barry Cornwall). My Books |
119 |
| William Roscoe. To my Books on Parting with Them |
120 |
| Lord Rosslyn. Among my Books |
121 |
| John Godfrey Saxe. The Library |
122 |
| Clinton Scollard. In the Library |
124 |
| Frank Dempster Sherman. The Book-Hunter |
126 |
| Robert Southey. The Library |
128 |
| Robert Louis Stevenson. Picture-Books in Winter |
130 |
| Richard Henry Stoddard. Companions |
131 |
|
Richard Thomson. The Book of Life |
133 |
| Charles Tennyson Turner. On Certain Books |
135 |
| Henry Vaughan. To his Books |
136 |
| Samuel Waddington. [1] Literature and Nature |
138 |
| John Greenleaf Whittier. The Library |
139 |
| Tomas Yriarte. The Country Squire |
141 |
| Anonymous. Old Books |
144 |
| APPENDIX. |
|
| George Crabbe. The Library |
149 |
| A Final Word. [1] The Collector to his Library (Austin Dobson) |
173 |
Man sitting and reading
Ballads of Books
BALLADS OF BOOKS.
THE BABY IN THE LIBRARY.
Edward D. Anderson.
From 'Wide-Awake' for May,
1885.
Within these solemn, book-lined walls,
Did mortal ever see
A critic so unprejudiced,
So full of mirthful glee?
Just watch her at that lower shelf:
See, there she's thumped her nose
Against the place where Webster stands
In dignified repose.
Such heavy books she scorns; and she
Considers Vapereau,
And Beeton, too, though full of life,
Quite stupid, dull, and slow.
She wants to take a higher flight,
Aspiring little elf!
And on her mother's arm at length
She gains a higher shelf.
But, oh! what liberties she takes
With those grave, learnèd men;
Historians, and scientists,
And even "Rare old Ben!"
At times she takes a spiteful turn,
And pommels, with her fists,
De Quincey, Jeffrey, and Carlyle,
And other essayists.
And, when her wrath is fully roused,
And she's disposed for strife,
It almost looks as if she'd like
To take Macaulay's 'Life.'
Again, in sympathetic mood,
She gayly smiles at Gay,
And punches Punch, and frowns at Sterne
In quite a dreadful way.
In vain the Sermons shake their heads:
She does not care for these;
But catches, with intense delight,
At all the Tales she sees.
Where authors chance to meet her views,
Just praise they never lack;
To comfort and encourage them,
She pats them on the back.
MY BOOKS.
Francis Bennoch.
From the 'Storm and Other Poems.'
1878.
I love my books as drinkers love their wine;
The more I drink, the more they seem divine;
With joy elate my soul in love runs o'er,
And each fresh draught is sweeter than before.
Books bring me friends where'er on earth I be,—
Solace of solitude,—bonds of society!
I love my books! they are companions dear,
Sterling in worth, in friendship most sincere;
Here talk I with the wise in ages gone,
And with the nobly gifted of our own.
If love, joy, laughter, sorrow please my mind,
Love, joy, grief, laughter in my books I find.
THE ART OF BOOK-KEEPING.
Laman Blanchard.
From his 'Poetical Works.' 1876.
How hard, when those who do not wish
To lend, that's lose, their books,
Are snared by anglers—folks that fish
With literary hooks;
Who call and take some favorite tome,
But never read it through,—
They thus complete their set at home,
By making one at you.
Behold the bookshelf of a dunce
Who borrows—never lends:
Yon work, in twenty volumes, once
Belonged to twenty friends.
New tales and novels you may shut
From view—'tis all in vain;
They're gone—and though the leaves are "cut"
They never "come again."
For pamphlets lent I look around,
For tracts my tears are spilt;
But when they take a book that's bound,
'Tis surely extra-gilt.
A circulating library
Is mine—my birds are flown;
There's one odd volume left to be
Like all the rest, a-lone.
I, of my Spenser quite bereft,
Last winter sore was shaken;
Of Lamb I've but a quarter left,
Nor could I save my Bacon.
My Hall and Hill were levelled flat,
But Moore was still the cry;
And then, although I threw them Sprat,
They swallowed up my Pye.
O'er everything, however slight,
They seized some airy trammel;
They snatched my Hogg and Fox one night,
And pocketed my Campbell.
And then I saw my Crabbe at last,
Like Hamlet's, backward go;
And, as my tide was ebbing fast,
Of course I lost my Rowe.
I wondered into what balloon
My books their course had bent;
And yet, with all my marvelling, soon
I found my Marvell went.
My Mallet served to knock me down,
Which makes me thus a talker;
And once, while I was out of town,
My Johnson proved a Walker.
While studying o'er the fire one day
My Hobbes amidst the smoke,
They bore my Colman clean away,
And carried off my Coke.
They picked my Locke, to me far more
Than Bramah's patent's worth;
And now my losses I deplore
Without a Home on earth.
If once a book you let them lift,
Another they conceal;
For though I caught them stealing Swift,
As swiftly went my Steele.
Hope is not now upon my shelf,
Where late he stood elated;
But, what is strange, my Pope himself
Is excommunicated.
My little Suckling in the grave
Is sunk to swell the ravage;
And what 'twas Crusoe's fate to save
'Twas mine to lose—a Savage.
Even Glover's works I cannot put
My frozen hands upon;
Though ever since I lost my Foote
My Bunyan has been gone.
My Hoyle with Cotton went; oppressed,
My Taylor too must sail;
To save my Goldsmith from arrest,
In vain I offered Bayle.
I Prior sought, but could not see
The Hood so late in front;
And when I turned to hunt for Lee,
Oh! where was my Leigh Hunt.
I tried to laugh, old Care to tickle,
Yet could not Tickell touch;
And then, alas! I missed my Mickle,
And surely mickle's much.
'Tis quite enough my griefs to feed,
My sorrows to excuse,
To think I cannot read my Reid,
Nor even use my Hughes.
To West, to South, I turn my head,
Exposed alike to odd jeers;
For since my Roger Ascham's fled,
I ask 'em for my Rogers.
They took my Horne—and Horne Tooke, too,
And thus my treasures flit;
I feel, when I would Hazlitt view,
The flames that it has lit.
My word's worth little, Wordsworth gone,
If I survive its doom;
How many a bard I doated on
Was swept off—with my Broome.
My classics would not quiet lie,
A thing so fondly hoped;
Like Dr. Primrose, I may cry,
"My Livy has eloped!"
My life is wasting fast away—
I suffer from these shocks;
And though I've fixed a lock on Gray,
There's gray upon my locks.
I'm far from young—am growing pale—
I see my Butter fly;
And when they ask about my ail,
'Tis Burton! I reply.
They still have made me slight returns,
And thus my griefs divide;
For oh! they've cured me of my Burns,
And eased my Akenside.
But all I think I shall not say,
Nor let my anger burn;
For as they never found me Gay,
They have not left me Sterne.
IN THE LIBRARY.
Anne C. L. Botta.
From her collected 'Poems.' 1882.
Speak low—tread softly through these halls;
Here genius lives enshrined,—
Here reign, in silent majesty,
The monarchs of the mind.
A mighty spirit-host, they come
From every age and clime;
Above the buried wrecks of years
They breast the tide of time.
And in their presence-chamber here
They hold their regal state,
And round them throng a noble train,
The gifted and the great.
O child of earth, when round thy path
The storms of life arise,
And when thy brothers pass thee by
With stern, unloving eyes,—
Here shall the Poets chant for thee
Their sweetest, loftiest lays;
And Prophets wait to guide thy steps
In wisdom's pleasant ways.
Come, with these God-anointed kings
Be thou companion here,
And in the mighty realm of mind
Thou shalt go forth a peer.
MY SHAKSPERE.
H. C. Bunner.
Written expressly for this collection.
With bevelled binding, with uncut edge,
With broad white margin and gilded top,
Fit for my library's choicest ledge,
Fresh from the bindery, smelling of shop,
In tinted cloth, with a strange design—
Buskin and scroll-work and mask and crown,
And an arabesque legend tumbling down—
"The Works of Shakspere" were never so fine.
Fresh from the shop! I turn the page—
Its "ample margin" is wide and fair—
Its type is chosen with daintiest care;
There's a "New French Elzevir" strutting there
That would shame its prototypic age.
Fresh from the shop! O Shakspere mine,
I've half a notion you're much too fine!
There's an ancient volume that I recall,
In foxy leather much chafed and worn;
Its back is broken by many a fall,
The stitches are loose and the leaves are torn;
And gone is the bastard-title, next
To the title-page scribbled with owners' names,
That in straggling old-style type proclaims
That the work is from the corrected text
Left by the late Geo. Steevens, Esquire.
The broad sky burns like a great blue fire,
And the Lake shines blue as shimmering steel,
And it cuts the horizon like a blade—
But behind the poplar's a strip of shade—
The great tall Lombardy on the lawn.
And lying there in the grass, I feel
The wind that blows from the Canada shore,
And in cool, sweet puffs comes stealing o'er,
Fresh as any October dawn.
I lie on my breast in the grass, my feet
Lifted boy-fashion, and swinging free,
The old brown Shakspere in front of me.
And big are my eyes, and my heart's a-beat;
And my whole soul's lost—in what?—who knows?
Perdita's charms or Perdita's woes—
Perdita fairy-like, fair and sweet.
Is any one jealous, I wonder, now,
Of my love for Perdita? For I vow
I loved her well. And who can say
That life would be quite the same life to-day—
That Love would mean so much, if she
Had not taught me its A B C?
The Grandmother, thin and bent and old,
But her hair still dark and her eyes still bright,
Totters around among her flowers—
Old-fashioned flowers of pink and white;
And turns with a trowel the dark rich mould
That feeds the blooms of her heart's delight.
Ah me! for her and for me the hours
Go by, and for her the smell of earth—
And for me the breeze and a far love's birth,
And the sun and the sky and all the things
That a boy's heart hopes and a poet sings.
Fresh from the shop! O Shakspere mine,
It wasn't the binding made you divine!
I knew you first in a foxy brown,
In the old, old home, where I laid me down,
In the idle summer afternoons,
With you alone in the odorous grass,
And set your thoughts to the wind's low tunes,
And saw your children rise up and pass—
And dreamed and dreamed of the things to be,
Known only, I think, to you and me.
I've hardly a heart for you dressed so fine—
Fresh from the shop, O Shakspere mine!
THE BOOKWORMS.
Burns saw a splendidly bound but sadly
neglected copy of Shakspere in the
Robert Burns.
library of a nobleman in Edinburgh,
and he wrote these lines on the ample
margin of one of its pages, where they
were found long after the poet's death.