My Books
These are my books-a Burton old,
A Lamb arrayed against the cold
In polished dress of red and blue,
A rare old Elzevir or two,
And Johnson clothed in green and gold.
A Pope in gilded calf I sold,
To buy a Sterne of worth untold,
To cry, as bibliomaniacs do,
“These are my books!”
What though a Fate unkind hath doled
But favours few to me, yet bold
My little wealth abroad I strew,
To purchase acquisitions new,
And say by love of them controlled,
These are my books.
Nathan M. Levy.