My Books

When the folks have gone to bed, And the lamp is burning low, And the fire burns not so red As it burned an hour ago,

Then I turn about my chair So that I can dimly see Into the dark corners where Lies my modest library.

Volumes gay and volumes grave, Many volumes have I got; Many volumes though I have, Many volumes have I not.

I have not the rare Lucasta, London, 1649; I'm a lean-pursed poetaster, Or the book had long been mine....

Near the "Wit's Interpreter" (Like an antique Whitaker, Full of strange etcetera), "Areopagitiea,"

And the muse of Lycidas, Lost in meditation deep, Give the cut to Hudibras, Unaware the knave's asleep....

There lies Coleridge, bound in green, Sleepily still wond'ring what He meant Kubla Khan to mean, In that early Wordsworth, Mat.

Arnold knows a faithful prop,-- Still to subject-matter leans, Murmurs of the loved hill-top, Fyfield tree and Cumnor scenes.

The poem closes with a high tribute to Shelley, "more than all the others mine."

The following trifle is excellent fooling: