And so the afternoon passed, with the poets and without them, with thoughts and without them, until the sun went down in gold and amber and my work was done. With the urge of spring in my heart and a strange music in my brain I bore home my spoils, feeling that the day had not been wasted.
Poets, O Poets! You have had your will!
My soul is ever vibrant to your song,
And in the glamour of your dreams I live.
Sages, O Sages! I have drunk my fill
At all the fountains that to Truth belong,
Thirsting for all you give—and cannot give.
Idly, slow-wafted by a magic sail,
I drift away in tranced ecstasy,
Sole to myself, to Life no more a thrall!
But in those hours supreme you ever fail!
You have no music for a soul made free,
No words for one who is at one with all!
Only a child, unconscious of all art,
Could show, unknowing, what is in my heart.
March 11.—"Now what on earth kind of mess are you making?"
Wasn't that a cheering remark to fling at a man who was having his crowded hour! When it startled and irritated me, I was busy being a pioneer of science, a prose poet, and the patient head of a family, all at the same time. Some people have their crowded hour of glorious life. That is the kind that poets sing about. Mine, as you will notice, was a crowded hour of simple life, and what it was worth will be set down hereinafter with humble truthfulness.
"Do you think that other people have nothing to do but wash saucepans for you to muss up? What do you think you are doing, anyway?"
The phrases of prose-poetry evaporated. The importance of the scientific discovery dwindled, and the dignified attitude necessary to the head of a family was seriously threatened.