“Learn from your failures, or you will fail to learn.” ~ Amish Proverb

My books—a ragged lot are they...
And yet to me each dingy book
Appeals with such a friendly look...
My Goldsmith's muslin coat is torn;
My Boswell I have clothed in cotton;
Old Samuel's leathern suit is rotten;
Macaulay's page is marked with grime
Beyond my power to tell in rhyme...
I've read Sir Walter to the core,—
His volumes now are somewhat tattered;
My poets all—Burns, Byron, Keats,
Poe, Coleridge—I have sucked their sweets,
And left the calyx somewhat shattered...
~T.J. Chapman