"A Study of Reading Habits" tells the story of the speaker's relationship with books—and his own imagination—as it changes over time. The poem unfolds chronologically; this first stanza discusses his early school days, followed by adolescence and adulthood in stanzas two and three. Each stanza has six lines (is a sestet) and an ABCBAC rhyme scheme. Most lines are written in trimeter (have three strong stresses), but the pattern of stresses varies.
The speaker begins by recalling his early passion for reading. Books sparked his imagination, offering him an escape from the headaches of reality—a kind of awakening in which other lives suddenly seemed possible. In lines 1-2, he metaphorically describes reading as a medicine that improved his life:
When getting my nose in a book
Cured most things short of school,
The speaker doesn't yet say what these "things" (problems) were, though he alludes to them later. In childhood, he was so enraptured by his books that his nose would practically touch the page, as if at any moment he could just dive into its alternative universe. The real world existed on the periphery, beyond the margins. Of course, he couldn't escape reality entirely; as he says, not even books can fully alleviate the drudgery "of school"! But the pleasures of books were "worth ruining [his] eyes" for (because he read so much—possibly at night, which would increase eyestrain).
Books convinced the speaker that he "could still keep cool" (line 4). Here, the poem introduces a layer of irony. The young speaker was a bookworm, which, the poem implies, wasn't a cool thing to be. But books allowed to him to imagine being "cool," even if he wasn't the popular kid at "school." More specifically, "keep cool" means "stay calm under pressure," perhaps hinting that the speaker would get riled up by his treatment at the hands of others. Reading allowed him to dream of becoming an action hero, even as he encountered his physical limitations by "ruining [his] eyes." (Symbolically, this detail could also suggest that his dream was shortsighted.)