Classic Poem

News ! Good News! at the old year's end:
Lovers of learning, come buy, come buy!
Now to old Holborn let bookmen wend,
Though the town be gnmy, and grim the sky.
News! Good News! is our Christmas cry;
For our feast of reason is richly spread,
And hungry bookmen may turn and try
The famous Sign of the Caxton Head .

Let moralists talk of the lifelong friend;
But books are the safest of friends, say I!
The best of good fellows will oft offend;
But books can never do wrong: for why?
To their lover's ear, and their lover's eye,
They are ever the same as in dear years fled;
And the choicest haunt, till you bid them fly,
The famous Sign of the Caxton Head .

In one true fellowship see them blend!
The delicate pages of Italy;
Foulis and Baskerville, bad to lend;
And the strong black letter of Germany:
Here rare French wonders of beauty lie,
Wrought by the daintiest of hands long dead:
All these are waiting, till you draw nigh
The famous Sign of the Caxton Head .

L'E NVOI .

Bookmen! whose pleasures can never die,
While books are written, and books are read:
For the honour of Caxton, pass not by
The famous Sign of the Caxton Head .