He was fond of reading classical books
He used to peruse poets of olden time
Sitting in the fields in the shady nooks
In the eager days of an ardent prime
He traveled far and wide in his studies
Homer, Hesiod, Dante, Aeschylus
Sophocles, Sappho and Europides
Virgil and Ovid and Propertius
Chaucer and Langland and Kid and Marlowe
Donne and Milton, Spenser and Shakespeare
Keats and Shelley and the Scottish fellow
Byron and Nature's priest, Hardy and Clare

They edified crude into burnished gold
Certainly, books are a mightier hold.


© Safdar Bhatti
Pakistan

(Best Entry of Exceptional Writing)