IN dingy binding dark with time And stately centuries of grime, An offspring of that early prime When first Ambition Set up, of minstrel's tale and rhyme, A print edition— This, the old volume that you'll find Dozing on upper shelves, resigned To modern manners, and the mind That seldom heeds it (Save as a marketable find) And never reads it. So dull it looks by tales to-day, For here no artist's paints portray In elfin fancy, gnome or fay, Nor pencil stages His light conceptions of the way Across its pages. Its day was earlier far, you see, Than these—proved comrades though they be— Who fill a fire-lit "after tea" From well-loved chalice, With fairy, giant, and jinnee, With Rip and Alice. Yet if you plod and persevere Along its leaded lines austere, As an adventurer in drear, Dark wildernesses, You'll learn to love the spelling queer, The antic esses. And find therein a promised land, Where friends of a robuster brand, Monks, archers, and a jolly band Of knights and dragons, Will toast your advent to their strand In brimming flagons! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...UPON THE IMAGE OF DEATH by ROBERT SOUTHWELL A SONNET by JAMES KENNETH STEPHEN ON THE PASSING OF THE LAST FIRE HORSE FROM MANHATTAN ISLAND by KENNETH SLADE ALLING THE OLD FERRYMAN by ANTIPHILUS OF BYZANTIUM THE FOREST POOL by MATHILDE BLIND HINC LACHRIMAE; OR THE AUTHOR TO AURORA: 1 by WILLIAM BOSWORTH |