Edgar A. Guest, b. 1881. I’ve posted poems by American poet Edgar Guest here and here. My father-in-law, a Southern Baptist preacher, often quoted Guest’s poems, several of which I think he had memorized and used as sermon illustrations. (I didn’t know that Judith Guest, author of the novel Ordinary People, was Edgar’s great-niece.)
Here’s another sample of Guest’s poetry, which some folks deride as sentimental and overly optimistic. I rather like it.
Edgar Guest
Good books are friendly things to own.
If you are busy they will wait.
They will not call you on the phone
Or wake you if the hour is late.
They stand together row by row,
Upon the low shelf or the high.
But if you’re lonesome this you know:
You have a friend or two nearby.
The fellowship of books is real.
They’re never noisy when you’re still.
They won’t disturb you at your meal.
They’ll comfort you when you are ill.
The lonesome hours they’ll always share.
When slighted they will not complain.
And though for them you’ve ceased to care
Your constant friends they’ll still remain.
Good books your faults will never see
Or tell about them round the town.
If you would have their company
You merely have to take them down.
They’ll help you pass the time away,
They’ll counsel give if that you need.
He has true friends for night and day
Who has a few good books to read.
I love Edgar Guest’s poetry, at least what I have read of it. I have used one of his Thanksgiving poems and several patriotic ones on my blog and in my ladies’ ministry newsletter at church.
I have never read this one before — I like it!