Then never tuned the strings?
The Winds of Inspiration blow,
Yet pass me ever by;
And songs God taught me long ago,
Lost in the silence—die.
He rose from the table with a gesture of abrupt impatience and read the entire effusion through from beginning to end. First he laughed, then he sighed. He wondered for a moment how it was that so little of his passion had crept into the poor words. He crumpled up the paper and tossed it into the drawer; and then, blowing out the candles, moved over to the big arm-chair and dropped down into it. Again, as he sat there, his thoughts fell to dramatising his mood. He imagined that region within himself where all might come true, and all yearnings find adequate expression. The idea got more and more mingled with the storm. He pictured it to himself with extraordinarily vivid detail.
‘There is such a place, such a state,’ he murmured, ‘and it is, it must be accessible.’
He heard the clock in the stables—or was it the church—strike the quarter before midnight.
As he sat in the big chair, Smoke left the table and curled up again on the mat at his feet.