I love to collect poems, and have a particular fondness for the American poet Edgar A. Guest. But there is one “sub-genre” in poetry that I especially love, and that is the poems about literature, books, and reading. This is one of those poems.
Books
By Edgar Guest
Upon my shelf they stand in rows,
A city-full of human souls,
Sages, philosophers and drolls–
Good friends that everybody knows.
The drunkard shoulders with the saint;
The great are neighboring with the quaint
And they will greet me one and all
At any hour I care to call.
There’s Dickens with his humble crew
That has no end of joy to give.
With all his people I can live
By moving just a foot or two.
Or should I choose to sail the sea,
Stevenson there will pilot me,
While jovial, lovable Mark Twain
Waits patiently my call again.
Sometimes a friend drops in and looks
My little sitting room around
And, in a manner most profound,
Remarks: “Your shelves are lined with books!”
And men to cling to or despise.
Vast peopled cities, calm and still;
For me to visit when I will.
While my choice of authors differs from Guest’s, I fully share his fondness for books, and the satisfying pleasure of having my own volumes about me!
When Mother reads aloud, the past
Seems real as every day;
I hear the tramp of armies vast;
I see the spears and lances cast;
I join the thrilling fray;
Brave knights and ladies fair and proud
I meet when Mother reads aloud.
When Mother reads aloud, far lands
Seem very near and true;
I cross the desert’s gleaming sands,
Or hunt the jungles’ prowling bands,
Or sail the ocean blue;
Far heights, whose peaks the cold mists shroud,
I scale, when Mother reads aloud.
When Mother reads aloud, I long
For noble deeds to do—
To help the right, redress the wrong;
It seems so easy to be strong,
So simple to be true.
Oh, thick and fast the visions crowd
When Mother reads aloud.
~Author Unknown
One of the best loved poets in America during the 1900’s was Edgar Guest. His ability to express the feelings and experiences that we all know is, as far as I have found, unsurpassed in the realm of poetry. Two of his books are among the treasured volumes in my library, and I always relish the time spent in them.
He captures aspects of humanity with such skill and cleverness that it is genuinely amusing to read. The very best way to describe his work is as an astute friend of mine once remarked:
“Edgar Guest is to poetry what Norman Rockwell is to painting.” ~S. M.
Both of them are masters at depicting, in their respective mediums, the feelings, hopes, and dreams of Americans and the idiosyncrasies that are common among us. One of Edgar Guests poems (just like one of Norman Rockwell’s paintings) is a piece that you can just sit there and study, a remarkable preservation of what our culture was like because it catches the spirit of of the people. His poems often are on themes of honor, friendship, character, manliness, family, small-town America, and humor.
I would recommend finding a copy of the handsomely bound antique “Collected Verse of Edgar A. Guest” to start your collection. It is a large collection of many of his poems, selected by himself, and the perfect introduction to this worthy poet.
Below are are two of Edgar Guest’s most loved poems: “Myself” and “Somebody Said It Couldn’t Be Done” “Myself” was a favorite of my Grandpa who always carried an old newspaper clipping of it in his wallet.
Myself
I have to live with myself, and so
I want to be fit for myself to know;
I want to be able as days go by
Always to look myself straight in the eye;
I don’t want to stand with the setting sun
And hate myself for the things I’ve done.
I don’t want to keep on a closet shelf
A lot of secrets about myself,
And fool myself as I come and go
Into thinking that nobody else will know
The kind of man that I really am;
I don’t want to dress myself up in sham.
I want to go out with my head erect,
I want to deserve all men’s respect;
But here in this struggle for fame and pelf,
I want to be able to like myself.
I don’t want to think as I come and go
That I’m bluster and bluff and empty show.
I never can hide myself from me,
I see what others may never see,
I know what others may never know,
I never can fool myself—and so,
Whatever happens, I want to be
Self—respecting and conscience free.
~Edgar Guest
Somebody Said It Couldn’t Be Done
Somebody said that it couldn’t be done,
But, he with a chuckle replied
That “maybe it couldn’t,” but he would be one
Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.
So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin
On his face. If he worried he hid it.
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn’t be done, and he did it.
Somebody scoffed: “Oh, you’ll never do that;
At least no one has done it”;
But he took off his coat and he took off his hat,
And the first thing we knew he’d begun it.
With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,
Without any doubting or quiddit,
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn’t be done, and he did it.
There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,
There are thousands to prophesy failure;
There are thousands to point out to you one by one,
The dangers that wait to assail you.
But just buckle it in with a bit of a grin,
Just take off your coat and go to it;
Just start to sing as you tackle the thing
That “couldn’t be done,” and you’ll do it.
I had a mother who read to me
Sagas of pirates who scoured the sea.
Cutlasses clenched in their yellow teeth;
“Blackbirds” stowed in the hold beneath.
I had a Mother who read me lays
Of ancient and gallant and golden days;
Stories of Marmion and Ivanhoe,
Which every boy has a right to know.
I had a Mother who read me tales
Of Gelert the hound of the hills of Wales,
True to his trust till his tragic death,
Faithfulness lent with his final breath.
I had a Mother who read me the things
That wholesome life to the boy heart brings-
Stories that stir with an upward touch.
Oh, that each mother of boys were such!
You may have tangible wealth untold;
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.
Richer than I you can never be —
I had a Mother who read to me.
