books
You tell me of the songs,
The tales and epics of the age,
Far gone, speaking through passing throngs,
The budding romance of the page,
What language must I rhyme?
To hear again the old refrains,
How I long the vantage of a time,
Far gone, it's precepts and it's pains,
A puddle for a mirror,
A dusty way to meekly gain,
A glimpse of sweet humanity,
Far gone in all her ways but one remain.
Oh the crystal grass and more outside blue,
So round and full impress upon the mind,
And so in drops of preformed ink,
Crushed down into a heady-scented page,
A brilliant man makes busy the inner sight,
He talks long and sideways in so real a speech,
Down through the winding ducts of culture,
Through a shelf and hands and heady-scented page,
Reaching one who walks gingerly upon his dreams.
Open streets so ragged in their years,
The scent of culture and the fading time,
A waft of old books is ever overwhelmed
By the smell of fresh bread.
Or at least such tales in all their rhymes,
Ever cling to this city like musty spells,
It is becoming and so old, so sacred yet unclean,
The halls ascend in green and pale,
The gold to kiss the hallowed heads of many saints,
But there a turn and all is freshly new,
That man would clothe himself in splendour yet remain unchanged,
He is the same beneath unless so humbly touched.
Free-diving headlong into books,
A studied act of co-creation,
So seeing through the other's eyes,
Placing their tongue upon your breath,
You build the worlds they sketch.
You greet their take on man.
You see a glimpse of them:
Their hope their faith and wanderings
Through this same puzzled life.
I wonder if we'll look on books when there,
When every lamp is snuffed and all is bright,
When brought beyond unapproachable light,
When pulled into the deepest cosmic care:
Then we will know the One who truly knows,
Perhaps He'll use a book or lengthy tale,
Or tapestries and symphonies, the awe!
Or quiet whispers for which every lan-
guage was devised, but more like honey and,
Resplendent dew, like babbling brooks and velvet sand.
What gift it is to ruminate,
On all the ages in the soil,
Their books in shelves so near,
My burning curiosities placate,
Upon the abstract, the vast, the royal,
First eternal consolation to the gadgets of the year.
Working like a bee,
Yet finding pollen elsewhere,
Dusting textbooks, filling library air,
It starts a change of different kind,
Dripping like honey off the mind.
Peering into other halls,
Their grandure carpeted in green,
Soft brickwork draping stalwart glass,
Beneath the vast suspence hiding,
Militant people in pursuit of books.
Tucked away in library land,
World dampened 'tween the books,
The way starts forth gold flecks,
Among the sand, a precious hope,
Enthralling to a seethe as I then glance,
Upon the corner of a picture struck upon the mind:
O hours by the books in quiet places to be had!
Advice that's free,
On good study,
On notes and books and tables for the time,
On good structure for an essay fine,
A good grace to me,
To read all the
Advice that's free.