O for
books and a shady nook
Either in a door or out;
With the green leaves whispering overhede,
Or the street cries all aboute,
Where I maie reade all at my ease,
Bothe of the Newe and Olde,
For a jolly goode booke whereon to looke,
It is better to me than Golde.
--John Wilson
Who Hath a
Book
Who hath a book
Has friends at hand,
And gold and gear
At his command.
And rich estates,
If he but look,
Are held by him
Who hath a book.
Who hath a book
Has but to read,
And he may be
A king indeed.
His kingdom is
His inglenook;
All this is his
Who hath a book.
-Wilbur D.
Nesbit
The Land
of Magic
There's a
wonderful land where I go by myself
Without stirring out of my chair;
I just take a book from the library shelf,
Turn it's pages, and presto! I'm there.
In that wonderful country of yesterday,
Where "to-morrow is always the now,"
Where the good ship Adventure is spreading her sails,
While the sea foam breaks white at her prow.
Where the desert sands burn in the African sun,
Where the North shivers under the snow;
Over the mountains and valleys where strange rivers run,
With hardy explorers I go.
I share, too, in the magic of fairies and gnomes;
I have followed the ways of the sea;
I have studied the fish in their watery homes,
And the bird and the ant and the bee.
I have followed the trail of the first pioneers,
Over prairie and mountain range;
I have lived with their dangers and shared in their fears,
In a country so new and so strange.
And then--just like magic--I'm high in the air
In a glittering aeroplane!
Swooping in bird- flight now here and now there-
Up, up through the clouds and the rain!
O ship of Adventure! your sails are spread wide
As they fill with the winds of the west;
Restless and swaying you wait for the tide
To bear you away on your quest.
With you I will sail for a year and a day,
To the worlds most unreachable nooks,
For there is nothing to hinder the traveler's way
Through the wonderful Country of Books!
--Edith D. Osborne
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