“Books” by Edgar Guest
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!