"Yes," he repeated, "tongues, silent, untaught tongues,—but with unknown, unvoiced melodies that await but the torch of sympathy to sound, lyrically, upon the waiting air."
"Am I really like that? Do you think I could voice lyrics, myself? I mean it,—write poetry, you know. I've always wanted to. Do you think I could, Mr. Blaney?"
"I know it. Unfolding one's soul in song is not an art, as some suppose, to be learned,—it is a natural, irrepressible expression of the inner ego, it is a response to the melodic urge——"
"Oh, wait a minute, you're getting beyond me. What do all these things mean? It's so much Greek to me."
"But you want to learn?"
"Yes; that is, I'm interested in it. I always did think I'd like to write poetry. But I don't know the rules."
"There are no rules. Unfetter your soul, take a pencil,—the words will come."
"Really? Can you do that, Mr. Blaney? Could you take a pencil, now,—and just write out your soul, and produce a poem?"
Patty was very much in earnest. Sam Blaney looked at her, the eager pleading face urged him, the blue eyes dared a refusal, and the hovering smile seemed to doubt his ability to prove his own proposition.
"Of course I could!" he replied. "With you for inspiration, I could write a poem that would throb and thrill with the eternal heart of the radiance of the soul's starshine."