On the Gift of a Book to a Child

By Hilaire Belloc 1870–1953 Hilaire Belloc

Child! do not throw this book about!

Refrain from the unholy pleasure

Of cutting all the pictures out!

Preserve it as your chiefest treasure.

Child, have you never heard it said

That you are heir to all the ages?

Why, then, your hands were never made

To tear these beautiful thick pages!

Your little hands were made to take

The better things and leave the worse ones:

They also may be used to shake

The Massive Paws of Elder Persons.

And when your prayers complete the day,

Darling, your little tiny hands

Were also made, I think, to pray

For men that lose their fairylands.

Source: Complete Verse (1970)

Biography

Hilaire Belloc is considered one of the most controversial and accomplished men of letters of early twentieth-century England. An author whose writings continue to draw either the deep admiration or bitter contempt of readers, he was an outspoken proponent of radical social and economic reforms, all grounded in his vision of Europe as a "Catholic society." Although many critics have attacked Belloc's prescriptive polemical works . . .

Continue reading this biography