Reading Room Rules at the Tumbril Library
DENIS GLOVER
A poem occasioned by the poet, a glass of water at his elbow, having the Rules of the Reading Room expounded to him by the Reference Librarian. Among those dry-stored documents I didn’t oughta Among prized succulents Commit an offence making sense By having by a glass of water. And I’m not allowed to try To look at a book While eating a pie. I’m sadly mistaken and in disgrace Should I have taken to mark my place With a nice slice of the Best Bacon. The Librarian, chewing his thumb, Would get didactical Should I be practical And use chewing-gum. No use to say I’d never dream Of mixing Milton and ice-cream, And the Librarian pronounces doom Should I blow a bugle in the room. The Tumbril says Be nicely led, It’s not time yet to lose your head. No reading, please, anything obscene On your way to the guillotine. It would make the Library Association Blanch and bleach in consternation. No, I daren’t defy it, This Cathedral of fine quiet. Forfend that I should cough: In meditation may nod off. But, thunder! should I snore Politely they’d show me to the door, The wavering lift quavering Nevermore.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/TLR19780501.2.3
Bibliographic details
Turnbull Library Record, Volume 11, Issue 1, 1 May 1978, Page 2
Word Count
208Reading Room Rules at the Tumbril Library Turnbull Library Record, Volume 11, Issue 1, 1 May 1978, Page 2
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• David Blackwood Paul, “The Second Walpole Memorial Lecture”. Turnbull Library Record 12: (September 1954) pp.3-20
• Eric Ramsden, “The Journal of John B. Williams”. Turnbull Library Record 11: (November 1953), pp.3-7
• Arnold Wall, “Sir Hugh Walpole and his writings”. Turnbull Library Record 6: (1946), pp.1-12
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