The Rowfant Library
A. Lang. Written for the catalogue of Mr. Frederick
Locker’s books.
I mind me of the Shepherd’s saw,
For, when men spoke of Heaven, quoth he,
“It’s everything that’s bright and braw,
But Bourhope’s good enough for me.”
Among the green deep bosomed hills
That guard St. Mary’s Loch it lies,
The silence of the pastures fills
That yeoman’s homely paradise!
Enough for him his mountain lake,
His glen the burn goes singing through;
And Rowfant, when the thrushes wake,
Might well seem Paradise to you!
For all is old, and tried, and dear,
And all is fair, and all about
The brook that murmurs from the mere
Is dimpled with the rising trout.
And when the skies of shorter days
Are dark, and all the paths are mire,
How kindly o’er your Books the blaze
Sports from the cheerful study fire;
O’er Quartos, where our Fathers read
Entranced, the Book of Shakspere’s play,
O’er all that Poe has dreamed of dread,
And all that Herrick sang of gay!
Rare First Editions, duly prized,
Among them dearest far I rate
The tome where Walton’s hand revised
His magical receipts for bait.
Happy, who rich in toys like these
Forgets a weary nation’s ills,
Who, from his study window sees
The circle of the Sussex hills!
But back to town my Muse must fly,
And taste the smoke, and list to them
Who cry the News, and seem to cry
(With each Gladstonian victory),
Woe, woe unto Jerusalem! 20