The Philosopher was conscious of an uncomfortable nervousness.
“If you like,” he answered, rather slowly. “But poetry is not in my line.”
“I know it isn’t,” she agreed emphatically. “But just listen!”
And in a soft musical voice she repeated slowly and with well-modulated emphasis and intonation:
“Hence pageant history!—hence gilded cheat!
Swart planet in the universe of deeds!”
“Keats!” murmured the Philosopher, dreamily. “Honey and water!”
“Wide sea, that one continuous murmur breeds
Along the pebbled shores of memory!
Many old rotten-timbered boats there be
Upon thy vaporous bosom magnified
To goodly vessels; many a sail of pride,
And golden-keeled, is left unlaunched and dry!
But wherefore this? What care, though owl did fly
About the great Athenian admiral’s mast
The Indus with his Macedonian numbers?
Though old Ulysses tortured from his slumbers
The glutted Cyclops, what care?...”
“Not in the least!” interposed the Philosopher. “What do you know about ‘glutted Cyclops’?”
She continued:
“Juliet leaning
Amid her window-flowers—sighing—weaning
Tenderly her fancy from its maiden snow,
Doth more avail than these: ...”