Explore "Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis" by Robert Browning on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Plague take all your pedants, say I! / He who wrote what I hold in my hand, / Centuries back was so good as to die, / Leaving this rubbish to cumber the land; / This, that was a book in its time, / Printed on paper and bound in leather, / Last month in the white of a matin-prime, / Just when the birds sang all together.
Into the garden I brought it to read, / And under the arbute and laurustine / Read it, so help me grace in my need, / From title-page to closing line. / Chapter on chapter did I count, / As a curious traveller counts Stonehenge; / Added up the mortal amount; / And then proceeded to my revenge.