While libraries certainly offer far more than books – from pre-school storytimes to adult literacy classes, from online job searches to homework help – the selection of fiction and non-fiction titles arranged precisely shelf after shelf is still a primary function.  In honor of National Library Week (just days away) here are words by Emily Dickinson, one of America’s best-known poets, and her thoughts about books.  Happy to join Bonnie, Kat, Kym, and others for this third Thursday, Gathering of Poetry.

There is no Frigate like a Book by Emily Dickinson

There is not Frigate like a Book
To take us Lands away
Nor any Coursers like a Page
Of prancing Poetry –
This Traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of Toll –
How frugal is the Chariot
That bears the Human Soul –

Bibliographic credit: The Poems of Emily Dickinson Edited by R. W. Franklin (Harvard University Press, 1999)

Photographic credit: Daguerreotype of Emily Dickinson in 1847 courtesy of Amherst College Archives & Special Collections