Every day in books

Rip van Winkle lies asleep.

Moby Dick patrols the deep

Every day, in books.

Tall the windmills turn in Spain,

Where, across an empty plain,

Rides the rusty knight in vain,

Every day in books.

Falstaff drinks and Hamlet dreams;

Camelot is all it seems;

England's queen, Elizabeth,

Denies for England love and death;

Down to Canterbury ride

Reeve and Miller side by side;

Kubla Khan in Xanadu

Hears the river running through,

Every day, in books.

And Marco Polo sails away,

Mr. Pickwick says his say,

Troy is falling every day,

Every day, in books.

You can pass, and I can pass

Toward them, through the Looking Glass,

Every day, in books.