I am a mild man, you'll agree,

But red my rage is,

When folks who borrow books from me

Turn down their pages.

Or when a chap a book I lend,

And find he's loaned it

Without permission to a friend

As if he owned it.

But worst of all I hate those crooks

(May hell-fires burn them!)

Who beg the loan of cherished books

And don't return them.

My books are tendrils of myself

No shears can sever . . .

May he who rapes one from its shelf

Be damned forever.