Ballade of the Bookman's Paradise

There is a Heaven, or here, or there, —
A Heaven there is, for me and you,
Where bargains meet for purses spare,
Like ours, are not so far and few.
Thuanus' bees go humming through
The learned groves, 'neath rainless skies,
O'er volumes old and volumes new,
Within that Bookman's Paradise!

There treasures bound for Longepierre
Keep brilliant their morocco blue,
There Hookes' " Amanda" is not rare,
Nor early tracts upon Peru!
Racine is common as Rotrou,
No Shakspere Quarto search defies,
And Caxtons grow as blossoms grew,
Within that Bookman's Paradise!

There's Eve, — not our first mother fair, —
But Clovis Eve, a binder true;
Thither does Bauzonnet repair,
Derome, Le Gascon, Padeloup!
But never come the cropping crew,
That dock a volume's honest size,
Nor they that " letter" backs askew,
Within that Bookman's Paradise!

ENVOY

Friend, do not Heber and De Thou,
And Scott, and Southey, kind and wise,
La chasse au bouquin still pursue
Within that Bookman's Paradise?
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