They had chorused Up With the Bonnet for Bonny Dundee and You Take the Highway....
There ran a ripple of talk while they waited for me.
In the red glow of the camp-fire I towered over the stocky little husband as he introduced me. Hildreth was sitting there ... I must make a good impression before my mate. All I saw was she—too patently, I fear.
I went through poem after poem, entranced with the melody of my verse ... mostly delicate, evanescent stuff ... like this one ...
"THE EMPEROR TO HIS LOVE
"I've a green garden with a grey wall 'round
Where even the wind's foot-fall makes no sound;
There let us go and from ambition flee,
Accepting love's brief immortality.