Classic Poem

A book is an enchanted gate,
That leads to magic lands,
But cross the threshold and your fate
A poet's pen commands.

For on strange journeys you are led,
Beyond your lamp-lit walls,
Where Fancy ever strides ahead
And onward subtly calls.

Until you leave the streets behind,
Lost in a forest maze,
And wander where the dim trails wind
In singing, fragrant ways.

Or set adrift on castled streams,
Where mellow moonbeams dance,
You sail, a voyager of dreams,
To regions of Romance.

So when I weary of the town,
Its whirling dust and din,
I seek my books that never frown,
When solace I would win.

For they, good friends in tale and rhyme,
Have never failed to bring
In troubled hours of autumn time,
The lilac days of spring!