www.alphadictionary.com

Thanks. For completeness, here is the whole poem:

ODE TO BOOKS

I have a mania for well-bound tomes
With gilded spines embracing noun and verb
A bibliophilic urge I cannot curb
'Twould drive, I fear, most spouses from their homes.

Yet, though I love my mate with all my heart
I ogle those stout volumes on my shelf
And whisper “darling darlings” to myself
As maudlin aesthetes gush at works of art.

In Greece, men went to Delphi for a sign
To tell their fortune, be it bright or bleak
My oracles are books, all of which speak
Profound but cryptic wisdom in each line.

One volume lauds the innate good of man
With quotes from Plato, Kant, and Oscar Wilde
While some say man’s a tramp—from birth defiled
And doomed to suffer under God's strange plan.

The musings of mankind are gathered here
Child-rearing, statecraft, money, myths and maps
A mixed milieu? A hodgepodge? Aye, perhaps,
But apt to rev my sluggish thinking gear.

My world is what I read and what I know
Fact, fiction, drama, plain or complex verse
Await with holy wisdom to disburse
A buzz of joy - and long may it be so.

Thanks to all. This one was a challenge, but I think it turned out fine. Join us next time. It'll exercise your synaptic connectors.

Thanks to all. This one was a challenge, but I think it turned out fine. Join us next time. It'll exercise your synaptic connectors.

I'm afraid that, at least as far as this type of exercise goes, my synapses have long been exorcised.