The Icelandic Canadian - 01.03.1974, Blaðsíða 47

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
45
Taken as objects, books and how they’re built:
Hundreds of hours of human endeavour spilt
Fondly and gladly into skilful toil
By many minds who burn the midnight oil.
Creating a product beautiful and fine —
Scanning each page, and every printed line,
All must be perfect in the way it looks
In man’s creative haven of common books.
Like children born, so too books appear,
Some rather dull, yet others in fact most dear.
Depending upon the soul implanted in
It’s author’s creation — A book seems so akin
To God’s own work, creating the common man —
Man like his Master, doing the best he can
By breathing the living fire, his love relates
Of his own image, into what he creates.
Books are source of every subject on earth,
The greatest mass of knowledge on from birth
And on to death. The loftiest inspirations
Of all our leading minds in all the nations
Live on through books. The sparkle of childhood tears
Glisten in pealing laughter, death disappears.
In flashes of life hereafter: Man is forevermore,
Books are his golden keys that open his every door.