University of Virginia Library

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114

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 learnèd 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 Hooke's Amanda is not rare,
Nor early tracts upon Peru!
Racine is common as Rotrou,
No Shakespeare quarto search defies,
And Caxtons grow as blossoms grow,
Within that Bookman's Paradise.

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115

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.