"Why, sir," stammered Jeremy, "they're wrote on such scraps an' bits o' paper, I only write 'em to please myself an'—an'—"
"Because he must!" added Diana. "You see, old pal, Jerry writes poetry like the birds sing and brooks flow, just because 't is his nature. I know lots of his verses by heart an' I love all of 'em, but I like this about the Silent Places best; listen:
"'He that the great, good thing would know
Must to the Silent Places go,
Leaving wealth and state behind
Who the great good thing would find.
Glories, honours, these will fade,
Life itself's a phantom shade;
But the soul of man—who knoweth
Whence it came and where it goeth.
So, God of Life, I pray of Thee
Ears to hear and eyes to see.
In bubbling brooks, in whispering wind
He who hath ears shall voices find,
Telling the wonder of the earth:
The awful miracle of birth;
Of love and joy, of Life and Death,
Of things that were ere we had breath;
Of man's soul through the ages growing,
Whence it comes or whither going,
That soul of God, a deathless spark
Unquenched through ages wild and dark,
Up-struggling through the age-long night
Through glooms and sorrows, to the light.
The soul that marches, age to age,
On slow and painful pilgrimage
Till man through tears and strife and pain
Shall thus his Godhead find again.
Of such, the wind in lonely tree
The murmurous brook, doth tell to me.
These are the wonders ye may know
Who to the Silent Places go;
Who these with reverent foot hath trod
May meet his soul and walk with God.'"
"Friend Jarvis," said the Ancient Person, setting down his empty platter and beginning to fill his pipe, "Peregrine was exactly right; you are a most astonishing tinker. You, sir, are a poet as I am a musician,—by a natural predisposition; and your poetry is true as is my music because it is simple; for what is Truth but Simplicity, that which touches the soul, the heart, the emotions rather than the cold, reasoning intellect, since poetry, but more especially music, is a direct appeal to and expression of, the emotion? Do you agree?"
"Why, sir," answered the Tinker, shaking his head a little sadly, "I don't know aught about music, d'ye see—"
"Fiddlestick, man! You are full of music. Who has not heard leaves rustle in the wind, or listened to the babble of a brook; yet to the majority they are no more than what they seem—rustling leaves, a babbling brook—but to you and me these are an inspiration, voices of Nature, of God, of the Infinite, urging us to an attempt to express the inexpressible—is it not so?"
"Why, my lord," quoth the Tinker, chafing blue chin with knife-handle, "since you put it that way I—I fancy—"
"Of course you do!" nodded his lordship. "Take yonder stream: to you it finds a voice to speak of the immemorial past; to me it is the elemental music of God. As it sings to-day so has it sung to countless generations and mayhap, in earth's dim days, taught some wild man-monster to echo something of its melody and thus perchance came our first music. What do you think?"
"'Tis a wonderful thought, sir, but I should think birds would be easier to imitate than a brook—"
"Possibly, yes. But man's first lyrical music was undoubtedly an imitation of the voices of nature. And what is music after all but an infinite speech unbounded by fettering words, an auricular presentment of the otherwise indescribable, for what words may fully reveal all the wonder of Life, the awful majesty of Death? But music can and does. By music we may hold converse with the Infinite. Out of the dust came man, out of suffering his soul and from his soul—music. You apprehend me, friend Jarvis?"