'You are certainly better,' said Miss Violet; 'you are seldom poetical at home.'
'No man who has been to sea can help being a poet,' said the old gentleman complacently, smoothing his beard. 'He beholds many strange appearances; he dreams strangely. Mysterious fancies thicken upon the drowsy vision of his lonely midnight look-out, and with him then it is as the great poet sublimely sings:
'"But shapes that come not at an earthly call,
Will not depart when mortal voices bid;
Lords of the visionary eye, whose lid,
Once raised, remains aghast, and will not fall."'
He relighted his pipe, and smiled at the moon, and seemed very well pleased with the acuteness of his memory.
'Those are noble lines,' said the girl.
'They are Wordsworth's. Ach! What delight that man has given me.'
'How much pleasanter it is,' said Miss Violet, 'on a glorious night like this to talk of poetry, and the visionary shapes of the sea, than of sailors' beef and pork!'