Book Borrower

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.