The wayfarer started, and, turning round, presented to Kenelm’s view a countenance in the ripest noon of manhood, with locks and beard of a deep rich auburn, bright blue eyes, and a wonderful nameless charm both of feature and expression, very cheerful, very frank, and not without a certain nobleness of character which seemed to exact respect.
“I beg your pardon for my interruption,” said Kenelm, lifting his hat: “but I overheard you reciting; and though I suppose your verses are a translation from the German, I don’t remember anything like them in such popular German poets as I happen to have read.”
“It is not a translation, sir,” replied the itinerant. “I was only trying to string together some ideas that came into my head this fine morning.”
“You are a poet, then?” said Kenelm, seating himself on the bench.
“I dare not say poet. I am a verse-maker.”
“Sir, I know there is a distinction. Many poets of the present day, considered very good, are uncommonly bad verse-makers. For my part, I could more readily imagine them to be good poets if they did not make verses at all. But can I not hear the rest of the ballad?”
“Alas! the rest of the ballad is not yet made. It is rather a long subject, and my flights are very brief.”
“That is much in their favour, and very unlike the poetry in fashion. You do not belong, I think, to this neighbourhood. Are you and your dog travelling far?”
“It is my holiday time, and I ramble on through the summer. I am travelling far, for I travel till September. Life amid summer fields is a very joyous thing.”
“Is it indeed?” said Kenelm, with much naivete. “I should have thought that long before September you would have got very much bored with the fields and the dog and yourself altogether. But, to be sure, you have the resource of verse-making, and that seems a very pleasant and absorbing occupation to those who practise it,—from our old friend Horace, kneading laboured Alcaics into honey in his summer rambles among the watered woodlands of Tibur, to Cardinal Richelieu, employing himself on French rhymes in the intervals between chopping off noblemen’s heads. It does not seem to signify much whether the verses be good or bad, so far as the pleasure of the verse-maker himself is concerned; for Richelieu was as much charmed with his occupation as Horace was, and his verses were certainly not Horatian.”