A young man flanneled sits,
And dreams his petty burgher dreams
Of burghers’ petty offices.
He’s nothing.
So, lonely in the savourless place, I find
No comrade for my white, white light,
No single soul that understands,
Or glimpses just, my meanings.”
Again the lonely girl looked out of the window, but this time with the sharpest annoyance, and wished herself even lonelier and more remote than her poem declared. Half a dozen lively children, including her own fat little brother Robert, had begun to play in the yard across the street, where the young man flanneled sat; and sometimes one of them came to hide behind his chair, though Renfrew was so immersed in his petty burgher dreams that he did not appear to know it. The shouting of the children interfered with composition, however, and while the poetess struggled on, the interference grew so poignant that it became actually a part of the texture of her poem:
“Oh, I am lonely in this world of noises,