Theodore Stephanides
London Public Library - Saturday Afternoon
Book-cases, book-shelves by the score
Books and their choosers, more and more:
The housewife, teenager, and hag,
The clerk, the plumber with his bag...

And still they come - an endless crew.
Of all that crowd a very few
Will ask for Shakespeare, or appease
A craving for Thucydides;

But most of them are there to kill
Old Father Time, and so they will
Select a novel or a gory
Time-immolating murder-story.
(from "The Golden Face", 1965)