“I've done a poem,” he said; and then quickly: “it's the best I've ever done. Read it.” He thrust it into my hand and retreated to the window.
I groaned inwardly. It would be the work of half an hour to criticise—that is to say praise—the poem sufficiently to please Charlie. Then I had good reason to groan, for Charlie, discarding his favorite centipede metres, had launched into shorter and choppier verse, and verse with a motive at the back of it. This is what I read:
“The day is most fair, the cheery wind
Halloos behind the hill,
Where bends the wood as seemeth good,
And the sapling to his will!
Riot O wind; there is that in my blood
That would not have thee still!
“She gave me herself, O Earth, O Sky:
Grey sea, she is mine alone—I
Let the sullen boulders hear my cry,
And rejoice tho' they be but stone!
'Mine! I have won her O good brown earth,
Make merry! 'Tis bard on Spring;
Make merry; my love is doubly worth
All worship your fields can bring!
Let the hind that tills you feel my mirth
At the early harrowing.”
“Yes, it's the early harrowing, past a doubt,” I said, with a dread at my heart. Charlie smiled, but did not answer.
“Red cloud of the sunset, tell it abroad; I am victor.
Greet me O Sun, Dominant master and absolute lord
Over the soul of one!”
“Well?” said Charlie, looking over my shoulder.
I thought it far from well, and very evil indeed, when he silently laid a photograph on the paper—the photograph of a girl with a curly head, and a foolish slack mouth.
“Isn't it—isn't it wonderful?” he whispered, pink to the tips of his ears, wrapped in the rosy mystery of first love. “I didn't know; I didn't think—it came like a thunderclap.”
“Yes. It comes like a thunderclap. Are you very happy, Charlie?”
“My God—she—she loves me!” He sat down repeating the last words to himself. I looked at the hairless face, the narrow shoulders already bowed by desk-work, and wondered when, where, and bow he had loved in his past lives.