Who is worthy and who is not ?

Souls are not displayed
on mannequins
at the neighborhood mall,
nor hang at the butcher’s shop
to choose a fine breast
that just covered a finer heart,
to feed my own. 

But was it you whom I heard when I was deaf ?
deaf to banal words, but yours were absorbed
Was it you who shew the next obstacle,
when I was blind?
they gave a myriad sights, yet I preferred
a simple hold of your arm, the candor in your voice

Apartments of books lean on a burdened bookend
the pock-marked bespectacled librarian,
with intermittent beard
(like moss on burnt brick)
picks out the thickest
with a keenest intent ;
Glad he lightens the weight on a deadwood.

It would take the time of libraries
to know all authors and pages
Next time you pay the bookman,
look at the unbelievable shelf-stack of attractive wisdom
But gaze longer at that book, when you
put your hands in the backpocket
and pay for the one you just chose;
It’s not necessary for its little press time
or its author’s household connect,
that you’d put it later
on your own shelf.

Who is worthy and who is not?
I rang the bell of my neighbor
to return a well-liked book
she says, “keep it, I just didn’t like it”
I said,” Thank you so much”
and my shelf was happy
for my well-read trophy.

[Author notes] : Prompt : True happiness consists not in the multitude of friends,But in the worth and choice.

–Benjamin Jonson

http://allpoetry.com/poem/6901921

For me, a friend is so much a book at first, that allows to grow itself into books.
And in a library world of all sorts of books, true happiness is found only in the selected ones you borrow for a lifetime.