Ballads Of Books
Ballads of Books
CHOSEN BY
BRANDER MATTHEWS
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
PREFATORY NOTE.
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 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:—
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.
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:—
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.
Proem.
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
How deep he dives in Fairy-lore!
The Books I loved, I love them still!
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!
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.
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.
Ballads of Books
BALLADS OF BOOKS.
THE BABY IN THE LIBRARY.
Edward D. Anderson. From 'Wide-Awake' for May,
1885.
Did mortal ever see
A critic so unprejudiced,
So full of mirthful glee?
See, there she's thumped her nose
Against the place where Webster stands
In dignified repose.
Considers Vapereau,
And Beeton, too, though full of life,
Quite stupid, dull, and slow.
Aspiring little elf!
And on her mother's arm at length
She gains a higher shelf.
With those grave, learnèd men;
Historians, and scientists,
And even "Rare old Ben!"
And pommels, with her fists,
De Quincey, Jeffrey, and Carlyle,
And other essayists.
And she's disposed for strife,
It almost looks as if she'd like
To take Macaulay's 'Life.'
She gayly smiles at Gay,
And punches Punch, and frowns at Sterne
In quite a dreadful way.
She does not care for these;
But catches, with intense delight,
At all the Tales she sees.
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.
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!
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.
To lend, that's lose, their books,
Are snared by anglers—folks that fish
With literary hooks;
But never read it through,—
They thus complete their set at home,
By making one at you.
Who borrows—never lends:
Yon work, in twenty volumes, once
Belonged to twenty friends.
From view—'tis all in vain;
They're gone—and though the leaves are "cut"
They never "come again."
For tracts my tears are spilt;
But when they take a book that's bound,
'Tis surely extra-gilt.
Is mine—my birds are flown;
There's one odd volume left to be
Like all the rest, a-lone.
Last winter sore was shaken;
Of Lamb I've but a quarter left,
Nor could I save my Bacon.
But Moore was still the cry;
And then, although I threw them Sprat,
They swallowed up my Pye.
They seized some airy trammel;
They snatched my Hogg and Fox one night,
And pocketed my Campbell.
Like Hamlet's, backward go;
And, as my tide was ebbing fast,
Of course I lost my Rowe.
My books their course had bent;
And yet, with all my marvelling, soon
I found my Marvell went.
Which makes me thus a talker;
And once, while I was out of town,
My Johnson proved a Walker.
My Hobbes amidst the smoke,
They bore my Colman clean away,
And carried off my Coke.
Than Bramah's patent's worth;
And now my losses I deplore
Without a Home on earth.
Another they conceal;
For though I caught them stealing Swift,
As swiftly went my Steele.
Where late he stood elated;
But, what is strange, my Pope himself
Is excommunicated.
Is sunk to swell the ravage;
And what 'twas Crusoe's fate to save
'Twas mine to lose—a Savage.
My frozen hands upon;
Though ever since I lost my Foote
My Bunyan has been gone.
My Taylor too must sail;
To save my Goldsmith from arrest,
In vain I offered Bayle.
The Hood so late in front;
And when I turned to hunt for Lee,
Oh! where was my Leigh Hunt.
Yet could not Tickell touch;
And then, alas! I missed my Mickle,
And surely mickle's much.
My sorrows to excuse,
To think I cannot read my Reid,
Nor even use my Hughes.
Exposed alike to odd jeers;
For since my Roger Ascham's fled,
I ask 'em for my Rogers.
And thus my treasures flit;
I feel, when I would Hazlitt view,
The flames that it has lit.
If I survive its doom;
How many a bard I doated on
Was swept off—with my Broome.
A thing so fondly hoped;
Like Dr. Primrose, I may cry,
"My Livy has eloped!"
I suffer from these shocks;
And though I've fixed a lock on Gray,
There's gray upon my locks.
I see my Butter fly;
And when they ask about my ail,
'Tis Burton! I reply.
And thus my griefs divide;
For oh! they've cured me of my Burns,
And eased my Akenside.
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.