Classic Poem

I.

H ERE the still air
Broods over drowsy nooks
Of ancient learning: one is 'ware,
As in a mystic aisle
Of lingering incense, of the balm of books.
So nard from cerecloths of Egyptian kings
Solemnised once the sepulchres of Nile.

II.

Here quietness,
A ghostly presence, dwells
Among rich tombs; here doth possess
With an ecstatic dread
The intruder seeking old-world oracles
In books, centuries of books, centuries of tombs
That hold the spirits of the crowned dead.

III.

Go softly! Here
Sleep fair embalmed souls
In piled-up monuments, in their sere
And blazoned robes of fame,
Conquerors of Time. Whisper to these grey scrolls,
Call Poet, Sage, Romancer, Chronicler,
And every one will answer to his name.

IV.

Man walks the earth
The quintessence of dust:
Books, from the ashes of his mirth
Madness and sorrow, seem
To draw the elixir of some rarer gust;
Or, like the Stone of Alchemy, transmute
Life's cheating dross to golden truth of dream.