“Yes,” replied May, promptly, “the morning you rowed me over to that pretty little island, when the river was so calm, and it all looked so lovely.”
“And I wrote some verses there, which I should like to read to you, to see how you like them. May I?”
May looked a little perplexed, for she had not forgotten that he had seemed anxious that she should not see them, then, and with her idée fixé of his hopeless passion for Kate—she had connected those verses in some way with that imaginary romance. However, she listened with great interest to his low toned reading:
In gleam of pale, translucent amber woke
The perfect August day,
Through rose-flushed bars of pearl and opal broke
The sunlight’s golden way.
Serenely the placid river seemed to flow
In tide of amethyst,
Save where it rippled o’er the sands below,
And granite boulders kissed;
The heavy woodland masses hung unstirred
In languorous slumber deep,
While, from their green recesses, one small bird
Piped to her brood—asleep.
The clustering lichens wore a tenderer tint,
The rocks a warmer glow;
The emerald dewdrops, in the sunbeam’s glint,
Gemmed the rich moss below.
Our fairy shallop idly stranded lay,
Half mirrored in the stream;
Wild roses drooped above the tiny bay,
Ethereal as a dream.
You sat upon your rock, a woodland queen,
As on a granite throne;
All that still world of loveliness serene
Held but us twain alone.
Nay! But there seemed another presence there
Beneath, around, above;
It breathed a poem through the crystal air,
Its name was Love!”