lost leaves

Like children I have lost,
I miss those books I gave away.
Each lonely, loose-leaf page
I long for on this dreary day.

Some other hand now holds,
some other soul they soothe and still.
(I rue those wasted years
when I had reading-time to kill!)

One author, you may know.
(I dare not spell his noble name)
When father bid me read;
I sneered, to my eternal shame!

But that was in my youth,
when blinded to the gentle gleam
of chapters’ golden glow,
I deemed those words a dead-man’s dream.

Like ghosts that glide and grieve,
they haunt, today, my dusty shelf.
Those volumes were, I vow,
the better part of my sad self.