Explore "In a Library" by Emily Dickinson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
A precious, mouldering pleasure 't is / To meet an antique book, / In just the dress his century wore; / A privilege, I think,
His venerable hand to take, / And warming in our own, / A passage back, or two, to make / To times when he was young.
His quaint opinions to inspect, / His knowledge to unfold / On what concerns our mutual mind, / The literature of old;
What interested scholars most, / What competitions ran / When Plato was a certainty. / And Sophocles a man;
When Sappho was a living girl, / And Beatrice wore / The gown that Dante deified. / Facts, centuries before,
He traverses familiar, / As one should come to town / And tell you all your dreams were true; / He lived where dreams were sown.
His presence is enchantment, / You beg him not to go; / Old volumes shake their vellum heads / And tantalize, just so.