The Boston Athenaeum The Boston Athenaeum Thou dear and well-loved haunt of happy hours,How often in some distant gallery,Gained by a little painful spiral stair,Far from the halls and corridors where throng The crowd of casual readers,have I passed Long,peaceful hours seated on the floor Of some retired nook,all lined with books,Where reverie and quiet reign supreme!
Above,below,on every side,high shelved From careless grasp of transient interest,Stand books we can but dimly see,their charm Much greater that their titles are unread;While on a level with the dusty floor Others are ranged in orderly confusion,And we must stoop in painful posture while We read their names and learn their histories.
The little gallery winds round about The middle of a most secluded room,Midway between the ceiling and the floor.
A type of those high thoughts,which while we read Hover between the earth and furthest heaven As fancy wills,leaving the printed page;For books but give the theme,our hearts the rest,Enriching simple words with unguessed harmony And overtones of thought we only know.
And as we sit long hours quietly,Reading at times,and at times simply dreaming,The very room itself becomes a friend,The confidant of intimate hopes and fears;A place where are engendered pleasant thoughts,And possibilities before unguessed Come to fruition born of sympathy.
And as in some gay garden stretched upon A genial southern slope,warmed by the sun,The flowers give their fragrance joyously To the caressing touch of the hot noon;So books give up the all of what they mean Only in a congenial atmosphere,Only when touched by reverent hands,and read By those who love and feel as well as think.
For books are more than books,they are the life,The very heart and core of ages past,The reason why men lived,and worked,and died,The essence and quintessence of their lives.
And we may know them better,and divine The inner motives whence their actions sprang,Far better than the men who only knew Their bodily presence,the soul forever hid From those with no ability to see.