Poem for National Libraries Day

Here — a little too late! — is a short poem to mark National Libraries Day, celebrated in the United Kingdom on the 6th of February, 2016.

Library

It is a wayside house for passers-by;

It offers shoppers wares they need not buy:

It is already theirs.  Outside they pause

And glance between a wrist-watch and the doors,

And peer inside, and then surprise themselves

Ten minutes later deep among the shelves.

It is a sitting-room; it is a street;

It has been set aside for minds to meet

Across an arm-chair, or beyond a page.

It squashes miles and bends the gulfs of age.

It holds the civic treasure; how much gold

Would buy the joy it sows cannot be told.

It is a match for any shade of mood:

For here is company or solitude;

A laden heart of aches and sorrow will

Discover that it wakes and wonders still.

And anyone can nestle in a nook

And bury all their cares beneath a book.

It is the shelter of the thoughtful child

From boredom or the tediously wild

And raucous playground.  It is a reward

That parents more than earn and can afford.

The wisest, who should know, call it the crown

That quietly lends the life to any town.

The Central Library, Sutton, Surrey.