For any library-lover the reasons for loving this poem by Louis MacNeice are self-evident
The British Museum Reading Room
Under the hive-like dome the stooping haunted readers
Go up & down the alleys, tap the cells of knowledge –
Honey & wax, the accumulation of years –
Some on commission, some for the love of learning,
Some because they have nothing better to do
Or because these walls of books will deaden
The drumming of the demon in their ears.
Cranks, hacks, poverty-stricken scholars,
In pince-nez, period hats or romantic beards
And cherishing their hobby or their doom
Some are too much alive & some are asleep
Hanging like bats in a world of inverted values,
Folded up in themselves in a world which is safe & silent:
This is the British Museum reading Room
Out on the steps in the sun the pigeons are courting,
Puffing their ruffs & sweeping their tails or taking
A sun bath at their ease
And under the totem poles – the ancient terror –
Between the enormous fluted Ionic columns
There seeps from heavily jointed or hawk-like foreign faces
The guttural sorrow of the refugees
