I’ve written here before about my college professor, Dr. Huff, who was the initiator and chief of what he called “The Six Hundred Club.” For his freshman English classes, he encouraged the students to memorize six hundred lines of poetry; his upper level Shakespeare classes were asked to memorize six hundred lines of SHakespeare. Either accomplishment entitled one to membership in “that exclusive and august society, THE SIX HUNDRED CLUB.” He wrote as an introduction to the mimeographed pages of poems for the freshmen, “Because one of the fringe thrills of your life will be your ability to recall the magic of some of literature’s greatest lines long after your college years, the following selections are offered for you to commit to memory.” The following poem is one of Dr. Huff’s selections:

Who Hath A Book

by Wilbur D. Nesbit

Who hath a book
Hath friends at hand,
And gold and gear
At his command;
And rich estates,
If he but look,
Are held by him
Who hath a book.

Who hath a book
Hath but to read
And he may be
A king, indeed.
His kingdom is
His inglenook-
All this is his
Who hath a book.

By the way, I am a member of The Six Hundred Club, not because I memorized this poem or any of the others on the freshman poetry list, but because I once could quote six hundred lines of Shakespeare. I still know some of the passages: “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow/ Creeps in this petty pace from day to day/ To the last syllable of recorded time.”

The Poetry Friday round-up is posted at A Wrung Sponge today.