But sorrow returned with the dawning of morn,
And the voice in my dreaming ear—melted away!
How precious are the recollections of one’s first love of poetry! If as a boy you read the “Golden Legend” walking in country lanes when the hay was cut in swathes in the fields on either hand; if you have ever lain in the midst of a cornfield and crooned to yourself the exultant promises of Rabbi ben Ezra, or climbed mountains with “Marmion” in your heart, or lisped the “Ode to a Nightingale” to the first girl you loved, how touching it will always be in memory!
The poet and the tramp shared thus their recollections as they wandered amidst heights and depths. They surely know much more of one another now!
I think the poet
Learned to be a poet,
By living with the poets
Till he became a poet.
He had the great need in him
To give a song a tune.