A Rondel

The dear old books that charmed me as a child !
I do not smile where once I always smiled,
And now I laugh where once I always cried :
Alas ! No joys, no sympathies abide---
They greet me as a stranger with strange looks,
          The dear old books.

But as I scan the well-known pages o'er,
Methinks no wealth of after-gotten lore,
No ponderous tomes of scientific truth,
Are loved like these companions of my youth,
Read long ago in all my favourite nooks,
          The dear old books.

Written by
Harold M. Barrows



Harold M. Barrows was born in 1861. He became a solicitor in 1883 and wrote a number of wonderful poems before his death in 1913.