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

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.