Page:Emily Dickinson Poems (1890).djvu/30

 22 X.

IN A LIBRARY.

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;