V.
The river was not very broad. It curved and twisted between ranks of weeping willows, and, just as Philip grew tired of rowing, a perfect grotto of a cove beckoned them to come in and rest. Marion had taken off her ugly rubber bathing cap while Philip rowed, and as they slid among the green and golden shadows of the willows, he was almost startled at the beauty of her hair. It seemed to flow about her shoulders in a leaping cascade of light and shadow, and Philip’s throat tightened as he watched it. Then he remembered that he was in search of love, not beauty, and that with a girl one must “shoot a line”. The boat touched the bank with a soft plash, and Philip summoned courage to mention one of his poems, which he said had come to him while he was rowing her up the river.
It began:
“Oh, how I wish I might transmute the arts,
And make of poetry a long caress—”
and, aside from the questionable novelty of addressing a short poem to one’s love in Elizabethan blank verse, it was neither better nor worse than the efforts of many young poets, not as yet nipped in the bud.