Rosemary and Pansies/A Bookworm's Confession

by Bertram Dobell

A BOOKWORM'S CONFESSION

E'en in my youth I knew the bookworm's passion;
I felt it ere I well had learned to read:
While cakes and sweets my comrades spent their cash on,
I to the bookshop with my pence would speed.

Ever the passion more and more controlled me,
Absorbing all my thoughts, my cash, my time;
'Twas vain, for parents or for friends to scold me,
My ears were shut to reason or to rhyme.

More than the fondest lover loves the maiden
Whose spell is on him ne'er to be o'erthrown,
I loved my books, which gratefully repaid in
A thousand ways the favour to them shown.

Old tomes I love most with their time-worn covers,
Quaint printing and dark paper stained with age;
About them a peculiar magic hovers
Such as I find not in the modern page.

I love the odd, the quaint, and the fantastic;
All that your men of "common sense" decline;
Such treasures with a joy enthusiastic
I greet and prize as connoisseurs old wine.

My crowded bookroom gives me greater pleasure
Than misers from their money-bags can gain;
Upon its shelves rests many and many a treasure
Sought for long years before I could obtain.

Therein I'm king—all elements contentious
Are there subdued and dwell in perfect peace;
Mohammed there rests quietly by Mencius;
There Pope and Protestant their warfare cease.

Old plays are there, old poems, old romances,
Things that the busy world has long forgot;
Books full of strange and undigested fancies
By brains half-mad and half-inspired begot.

All kinds of useless knowledge in it slumber;
Lamb's "books that are no books" there find no rest;
Few of its tomes would be allowed to cumber
Their shelves who chatter of "the hundred best."

It holds a thousand volumes none would value,
Save such another "dryasdust" as I,
Though why I love them I could scarcely tell you—
Lover ne'er loved who knew the reason why.

Treasures I see, wherever fall my glances,
If not unique of rarity extreme,
Each with a curious history which enhances
Its value past all price in my esteem.

I know wise worldlings look on me with wonder,
As one beneath a strange obsession's sway.
Though they perchance the influence are under
Of passions which to countless ills betray,

The bookworm's passion brings no keen repentance,
And if he spends he still retains his wealth;
Indulgence in it never yet did sentence
A man to vain regrets and ruined health.

Name a pursuit as pleasure-fraught and harmless,
Giving as many hours of calm delight,
And I'll at once abandon mine as charmless:
Till then I'll love it in the world's despite.

Let who will blame, my dear old books I'll cherish,
Since they for all my troubles make amends;
'Twill be my greatest sorrow when I perish
That I no more can guard my silent friends.