The Sultan of My Books
There is many a true word spoken in doggerel.— Czech Folk-Song.
Edmund Gosse. Written for the present collection.
Come hither, my Wither,
My Suckling, my Dryden!
My Hudibras, hither!
My Heinsius from Leyden!
Dear Play-books in quarto,
Fat tomes in brown leather,
Stray never too far to
Come back here together!
Books writ on occult and
Heretical letters,
I, I am the Sultan
Of you and your betters.
I need you all round me;
When wits have grown muddy,
My best hours have found me
With you in my study.
I’ve varied departments
To give my books shelter;
Shelves, open apartments
For tomes helter-skelter;
There are artisans’ flats, fit
For common editions,—
I find them, as that’s fit,
Good wholesome positions.
But books that I cherish
Live under glass cases;
In the waste lest they perish
I build them oases;
Where gas cannot find them,
Where worms cannot grapple,
Those panes hold behind them,
My eye and its apple.
And here you see flirting
Fine folks of distinction:
Unique books just skirting
The verge of extinction;
Old texts with one error
And long notes upon it;
The ‘Magistrates’ Mirror’
(With Nottingham’s sonnet);
Tooled Russias to gaze on,
Moroccos to fondle,
My Denham, in blazon,
My vellum-backed Vondel,
My Marvell,—a copy
Was never seen taller,—
My Jones’s ‘Love’s Poppy,’
My dear little Waller;
My Sandys, a real jewel!
My exquisite, ‘Adamo!’
My Dean Donne’s ‘Death’s Duel!’
My Behn (naughty madam O!);
Ephelia’s! Orinda’s!
Ma’am Pix and Ma’am Barker!—
The rhymsters you find, as
The morals grow darker!
I never upbraid these
Old periwigged sinners,
Their songs and light ladies,
Their dances and dinners;
My book-shelf’s a haven
From storms puritanic,—
We sure may be gay when
Of death we’ve no panic!
My parlor is little,
And poor are its treasures;
All pleasures are brittle,
And so are my pleasures;
But though I shall never
Be Beckford or Locker,
While Fate does not sever
The door from the knocker,
No book shall tap vainly
At latch or at lattice
(If costumed urbanely,
And worth our care, that is):
My poets from slumber
Shall rise in morocco,
To shield the new comer
From storm or sirocco.
I might prate thus for pages,
The theme is so pleasant;
But the gloom of the ages
Lies on me at present;
All business and fear to
The cold world I banish.
Hush! like the Ameer, to
My harem I vanish!