Treasure

I sometimes sit and gaze on the shelves
With a pleased little smile on my lips,
Gazing on the paperbound tales of elves,
And of vampires who drink their blood in sips,

The glossiness of their covers a seduction,
The shine of the pictures becoming a sheen
That seizes my mind and heart in abduction
To some land where everything is forever green,

To some land where I can hear those elves laugh,
Where those vampires feast between dusk and dawn,
Where danger makes a temptation to stray from the path,
Where there is sign of where unicorns have gone.

They enchant me stubbornly, rapt me away,
And most of the time I am a willing goer.
I can be lost for most of a night or a day
Over some fantasyland where breathless clouds lower.

But sometimes I do not like to travel with them.
Sometimes I just want to sit, and to quietly look,
To regard each one as an untried, untested gem;
I cannot see what flaws or fire might lie in the book.