Books are like a mansion, 

with too few rooms and not enough space within its large empty halls,

The smell of distant worlds wafting from pages within, glimpses of times past through the many windows of paper, the touch of one who lives between lines on a page, the sound of clashing swords echoing in the halls, the taste of magic flowing through the walls, 

The color of sorrow as dark as the words within, 

Stories as grand as the Winchester castle, characters with sadness as deep as Tomasz Liboska’s, 

A mansion with too many rooms to fill, 

The merry tune of hoofbeats trailing down the riverside, 

The horses laughing as they went, writing down all they saw and did, 

Pray tell the stories within the pages, those I cannot reach, 

Inquisitive paintings of chivalry hung on the highest walls 

The pattering of the rain, drying the dampest of cloth, heating the children who romp within the dreary cold, 

Children enter work at half past 6, debating the future of what is told, watching as the stories begin to unfold 

She is sat in a chair in a room, holding the weight of a world within her hand, reading of war, and magic watching the story expand

Smiling back at the her of tomorrow, who felt such sorrow of the pages turned

Fingers of joy gripped the turning pages, willing them to stop, wanting to read what passed within, 

The shouting within became thunder in a storm, the words streaming down the window sill of the mansion estate, begging to be let in 

fide proditione, fide proditione, screamed the pages of the book, pounding on the door, whilst no one shall look, 

For the mansion too large, to hear such sorrow, perhaps the stories will find refuge tomorrow.