It's been way too long since I did a Poetry Friday. I haven't been reading much. And for some reason when I'm not reading, I'm not thinking about books. And this Robert Service poem (Did I mention I'm completely in love with Services work?) seems to fit my recent mood only too perfectly. I have two huge bookcases filled with books I've bought but haven't read yet. I keep collecting them and then they sit gathering dust. I wish I was better, like my sister, who's going through her shelf reading through all those yet unread books. I just keep buying more and not ever getting to them.
Book Lover
by Robert Service
I keep collecting books I know
I'll never, never read;
My wife and daughter tell me so,
And yet I never heed.
"Please make me," says some wistful tome,
"A wee bit of yourself."
So I bring my treasure home,
And tuck it in a shelf.
And now my very shelves complain;
They jam and over-spill.
They say: "Why don't you ease our strain?"
"Some day," I say, "I will."
So book by book they plead and sigh;
I pick and dip and scan;
Then put them back, distrest that I
Am such a busy man.
Now, there's my Boswell and my Sterne,
my Gibbon and Defoe;
To savour Swift I'll never learn,
Montaigne I may never know.
On Bacon I will never sup,
For Shakespeare I've no time;
Because I'm busy making up
These jingly bits of rhyme.
Chekov is caviare to me,
While Stendhal makes me snore;
Poor Proust is not my cup of tea,
And Balzac is a bore.
I have their books, I love their names,
And yet alas! they head,
With Lawrence, Joyce and Henry James,
My Roster of Unread.
I think it would be very well
If I commit a crime,
And get put in a prison cell
And not allowed to rhyme;
Yet given all these worthy books
According to my need,
I now caress with loving looks,
But never, never read.
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2 comments:
No applause yet dear sister. My collection also grows. Did I mention I went to the library yesterday...17 items later and my collection still grows. No worries. You could collect guns, or candy bar wrappers, or condoms like those crazy sickos!
Hahaha. Of course. Those crazy condom collectors. I would never...oh wait....
And I would assume your collection will continue to grow. But as we talked about, you have a shelf or two of books waiting to be read. I have bookcases!!!! As in plural. And that stuff you take out from the library has to be returned. I didn't assume you were finished but I'm impressed that you're making the attempt.
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