Читать книгу The Book-Lovers' Anthology - Various - Страница 18

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One, with his beard scarce silvered, bore

A ready credence in his looks,

A lettered magnate, lording o'er

An ever-widening realm of books.

In him brain-currents, near and far,

Converged as in a Leyden jar;

The old, dead authors thronged him round about,

And Elzevir's grey ghosts from leathern graves looked out.

He knew each living pundit well,

Could weigh the gifts of him or her,

And well the market value tell

Of poet and philosopher.

But if he lost, the scenes behind,

Somewhat of reverence vague and blind,

Finding the actors human at the best,

No readier lips than his the good he saw confessed.

His boyhood fancies not outgrown,

He loved himself the singer's art;

Tenderly, gently, by his own

He knew and judged an author's heart.

No Rhadamanthine brow of doom

Bowed the dazed pedant from his room;

And bards, whose name is legion, if denied,

Bore off alike intact their verses and their pride.

Pleasant it was to roam about

The lettered world as he had done,

And see the lords of song without

Their singing robes and garlands on.

With Wordsworth paddle Rydal mere,

Taste rugged Elliott's home-brewed beer,

And with the ears of Rogers, at fourscore,

Hear Garrick's buskined tread and Walpole's wit once more.

J. G. WHITTIER. The Tent on the Beach.

Choose an author as you choose a friend.—W. Dillon,

Earl of Roscommon. Essay on Translated Verse.