THEY dwell in the odour of camphor, They stand in a Sheraton shrine, They are 'warranted early editions,' These worshipful tomes of mine; -- In their creamiest 'Oxford vellum,' In their redolent 'crushed Levant,' With their delicate watered linings, They are jewels of price, I grant; -- Blind-tooled and morocco-jointed, They have Zaehnsdorf's daintiest dress, They are graceful, attenuate, polished, But they gather the dust, no less; -- For the row that I prize is yonder, Away on the unglazed shelves, The bulged and the bruised octavos, The dear and the dumpy twelves, -- Montaigne with his sheepskin blistered, And Howell the worse for wear, And the worm-drilled Jesuits' Horace, And the little old cropped Moliere, And the Burton I bought for a florin, And the Rabelais foxed and flea'd, -- For the others I never have opened, But those are the books I read. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...PLEDGE by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON PRELUDE; FOR GEOFFREY GORER by EDITH SITWELL FOR ONCE, THEN, SOMETHING by ROBERT FROST FLUSH OR FAUNUS by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING SONNETS ATTEMPTED IN THE MANNER OF CONTEMPORARY WRITERS: 2 by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE ON A GRAVE AT GRINDELWALD by FREDERICK WILLIAM HENRY MYERS |