The Book Battalion
George Parsons Lathrop. Written for the present collection.
Wherever I go, there’s a trusty battalion
That follows me faithfully, steady, and true;
Their force, when I falter, I safely may rally on,
Knowing their stoutness will carry me through:
Some fifteen hundred in order impartial,
So ranged that they tell what they mean by their looks.
Of all the armies the world can marshal
There are no better soldiers than well-tried books.
Dumb in their ranks on the shelves imprisoned,
They never retreat. Give the word, and they’ll fire!
A few with scarlet and gold are bedizened,
But many muster in rough attire;
And some, with service and scars grown wizened,
Seem hardly the mates for their fellows in youth;
Yet they, and the troops armed only with quiz and
Light laughter, all battle alike for the truth.
Here are those who gave motive to sock and to buskin;
With critics, historians, poets galore;
A cheaply uniformed set of Ruskin,
Which Ruskin would hate from his heart’s very core;
Molière (’99), an old calf-bound edition,
“De Pierre Didot l’aîné, et de Firmin Didot.”
Which, meek and demure, with a sort of contrition,
Is masking its gun-lights, with fun all aglow;
And Smollett and Fielding, as veterans battered—
Cloth stripped from their backs, and their sides out of joint,
Their pictures of life all naked and tattered
Being thus applied to themselves with a point;
And six or eight books that I wrote myself,
To look at which, even, I’m half afraid;
They brought me more labor and pleasure than pelf,
And are clamoring still because they’re not paid.
But these raw levies remain still faithful,
Because they know that volumes old
Stand by me, although their eyes dim and wraithful
Remind me they seldom at profit were sold.
So I say, be they splendid or tatterdemalion,
If only you know what they mean by their looks,
You will never find a better battalion
Of soldiers to serve you than well-tried books.