BOOKWORMS

 

                BOOKWORMS

            Bookworms are persons who are extremely devoted to reading. They love  books , buy or borrow them , and spend almost every moment of their life among  old and new books.

            You can call them avid readers and collectors of books. Other names for them are book-lovers, bibliophiles, studious individuals, scholars, and bibliomaniacs.

            The term bookworm is used both in the negative and positive sense. A bookaholic is addicted to buying, collecting and reading books. He is a serious person, not a light-hearted one. His eyes are always focused on books even when he is travelling or having his meals.

            In the positive sense a bookworm is an enthusiastic consumer of books. You will find his room  loaded  with stocks of old and new books on a particular or variety of subjects.

            The most well-known 18^th-century poem titled “The Book-worm“  was written by Thomas Parnell (1679-1718). He was an Irish poet and scholar. According to a commentator his poem is a humorous take on a creature that eats books, arguing that it gains more knowledge than “hungry” scholars who only care about the books’ value.

            Another poem titled “The Bookworm” is by Robert Buchanan  (1841-1901) who lived a somewhat Bohemian life. If I am not wrong, he was a Scottish poet, novelist and dramatist. A few stanzas of his aforesaid poem follow.

            With spectacles upon his nose

            He shuffles up and down ;

            Of antique fashion are his clothes,

            His naples hat is brown,

            A mighty watch, of silver wrought,

            Keeps time in sun and rain

            To the dull ticking of the thought

            Within his dusty brain.

 

            To see him at the bookstall stand

            And bargain for the prize

            With the old sixpence in his hand

            And greed in his grey eyes !

            Then, conquering, grasp the book, half blind,

            And take the homeward track

            For fear the man should change his mind

            And want the bargain back.

 

            But think not as he walks along

            His brain is dead and cold;

            His soul is thinking in the tongue

            Which Plato spake of old ;

            And while some grinning cabman sees

            His quaint shape with a jeer

            He smiles ----for Aristophanes

            Is joking in his ear.

 

            Around him stretch Athenian walks

            And strange shapes under trees ;

            He pauses in a dream and talks

            Great speech with Socrates.

            Then as the fancy fails ---still meshed

            In thoughts that go and come,

            Feels in his pouch, and is refreshed

            At touch of some old tome.

 

After a few more stanzas, the poem concludes with the last one which consists of the following lines:

 

            A good old Ragpicker is he

            Who, following morn and eve

            The quick feet of humanity,

            Searches the dust they leave ;

            He pokes the dust, he sifts with care,

            He searches close and deep,

            Proud to discover here and there

            A treasure in the heap !

                                                *****

G.R.Kanwal

19 April 2026