Ballads of Books Part 10

BALLADE OF TRUE WISDOM.

A. LANG. _From 'Ballades in Blue China.' 1880._

While others are asking for beauty or fame, Or praying to know that for which they should pray, Or courting Queen Venus, that affable dame, Or chasing the Muses the weary and gray, The sage has found out a more excellent way,-- To Pan and to Pallas his incense he showers, And his humble pet.i.tion puts up day by day, For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.

Inventors may bow to the G.o.d that is lame, And crave from the light of his st.i.thy a ray; Philosophers kneel to the G.o.d without name, Like the people of Athens, agnostics are they; The hunter a fawn to Diana will slay, The maiden wild roses will wreathe for the Hours,-- But the wise man will ask, ere libation he pay, For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.

Oh grant me a life without pleasure or blame (As mortals count pleasure who rush through their day With a speed to which that of the tempest is tame).

Oh grant me a house by the beach of a bay, Where the waves can be surly in winter, and play With the sea-weed in summer, ye bountiful powers!

And I'd leave all the hurry, the noise, and the fray, For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.

ENVOY.

G.o.ds, give or withhold it! Your "yea" and your "nay"

Are immutable, heedless of outcry of ours: But life _is_ worth living, and here we would stay For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.

BALLADE OF THE BOOKMAN'S PARADISE.

A. LANG. _From 'Rhymes a la Mode.' 1885._

There _is_ a Heaven, or here, or there,-- A Heaven there is, for me and you, Where bargains meet for purses spare, Like ours, are not so far and few.

Thua.n.u.s' bees go humming through The learned groves, 'neath rainless skies, O'er volumes old and volumes new, Within that Bookman's Paradise!

There treasures bound for Longepierre Keep brilliant their morocco blue, There Hookes' 'Amanda' is not rare, Nor early tracts upon Peru!

Racine is common as Rotrou, No Shakspere Quarto search defies, And Caxtons grow as blossoms grew, Within that Bookman's Paradise!

There's Eve,--not our first mother fair,-- But Clovis Eve, a binder true; Thither does Bauzonnet repair, Derome, Le Gascon, Padeloup!

But never come the cropping crew, That dock a volume's honest size, Nor they that "letter" backs askew, Within that Bookman's Paradise!

ENVOY.

Friend, do not Heber and De Thou, And Scott, and Southey, kind and wise, _La cha.s.se au bouquin_ still pursue Within that Bookman's Paradise?

THE ROWFANT BOOKS.

_Ballade en guise de rondeau, written for_ A. LANG. _the catalogue of Mr. Frederick Locker's books._

The Rowfant books, how fair they show, The Quarto quaint, the Aldine tall, Print, autograph, portfolio!

Back from the outer air they call, The athletes from the Tennis ball, This Rhymer from his rod and hooks,-- Would I could sing them, one and all,-- The Rowfant books!

The Rowfant books! In sun and snow They're dear, but most when tempests fall; The folio towers above the row As once, o'er minor prophets,--Saul!

What jolly jest books, and what small "Dear dumpy Twelves" to fill the nooks.

You do not find on every stall The Rowfant books!

The Rowfant books! These long ago Were chained within some College hall; These ma.n.u.scripts retain the glow Of many a colored capital; While yet the satires keep their gall, While the Pastissier puzzles cooks, Theirs is a joy that does not pall,-- The Rowfant books!

ENVOY.

The Rowfant books,--ah, magical As famed Armida's golden looks, They hold the Rhymer for their thrall,-- The Rowfant books!

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 Suss.e.x 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]

[20] During the General Election, November, 1885.

GHOSTS IN THE LIBRARY.

A. LANG. _From 'Longman's Magazine,' July, 1886._