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.