Читать книгу Moral Emblems - Роберт Стивенсон - Страница 1

Some like drink

In a pint pot,

Some like to think;

Some not.

Strong Dutch cheese,

Old Kentucky rye,

Some like these;

Not I.

Some like Poe,

And others like Scott,

Some like Mrs. Stowe;

Some not.

Some like to laugh,

Some like to cry,

Some like chaff;

Not I.

Here, perfect to a wish,

We offer, not a dish,

But just the platter:

A book that’s not a book,

A pamphlet in the look

But not the matter.

I own in disarray:

As to the flowers of May

The frosts of Winter;

To my poetic rage,

The smallness of the page

And of the printer.

As seamen on the seas

With song and dance descry

Adown the morning breeze

An islet in the sky:

In Araby the dry,

As o’er the sandy plain

The panting camels cry

To smell the coming rain:

So all things over earth

A common law obey,

And rarity and worth

Pass, arm in arm, away;

And even so, to-day,

The printer and the bard,

In pressless Davos, pray

Their sixpenny reward.

The pamphlet here presented

Was planned and printed by

A printer unindented,

A bard whom all decry.

The author and the printer,

With various kinds of skill,

Concocted it in Winter

At Davos on the Hill.

They burned the nightly taper;

But now the work is ripe -

Observe the costly paper,

Remark the perfect type!