Poem by Louise Imogen Guiney

In the Reading-Room of the British Museum

Praised be the moon of books! that doth above
A world of men, the sunken Past behold,
And colour spaces else too void and cold,
To make a very heaven again thereof;
As when the sun is set behind a grove,
And faintly unto nether ether rolled,
All night, his whiter image and his mould
Grows beautiful with looking on her love.
Thou, therefore, moon of so divine a ray,
Lend to our steps both fortitude and light!
Feebly along a venerable way
They climb the infinite, or perish quite;
Nothing are days and deeds to such as they,
While in this liberal house thy face is bright.

1. The Japanese Anemone
2. Tryste Noel
3. A Talisman
4. Heathenesse
5. Sherman: “An Horatian Ode”

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