Classic Poem

A MOTLEY COLLECTION .

And there is leaning " Pole on Whist
Against " The Shorter Catechist " ;
A row of Browning, just above
That book of Michelet's on Love;
Sir Thomas Browne, discreet and staid,
Upon the upper shelf is laid;
And " Walks in Rome " by Mr. Hare
Is jostled by my Moliere.
A vellum Villon, nothing loth,
Hobnobs with Balzac (rascals both);
Hosea Biglow's wit and pith
Are matched by those of Sydney Smith,
And Mr. Caudle's better half
Stands up with Petrarch, bound in calf.
And here and there your eye may see
A Dickens or a Thackeray.
That Irving peeping from the row
Is shelf-worn, for I love it so.
Here gentle Elia flitting goes
Round Marlowe's leonine repose,
While Goldsmith finds a welcome rest
With Aphra Behn, in russia drest.
And Murger's " Latin Quarter Life "
Is with " Josiah Allen's Wife. "
Look all around, you have not missed
A single early dramatist.
I've all the poets — every one
From Chaucer down to Tennyson,
And here you see (I read it yet)
Heptameron of Margaret.
A work or two of Thomas Paine,
The essays of M'sieur Montaigne,
A " Joseph Andrews " bound in blue,
A Virgil and a Horace, too.

These are the men that nightly meet,
And hold me in their converse sweet.