“Why are you so quiet, Jack?”
“For three reasons,” he replied, promptly. “This walk has made me romantic, poetic, and hungry.”
Helen laughed heartily. “I am glad you added the third reason, for by that I know that you are mortal. This wonderful air and the marvellous view affect me exactly as a fairy-story used to, years ago. When I turned I fully expected to find a fairy prince beside me. You confess that you are romantic, which is becoming in a five-weeks’-old husband, but why poetic?”
“‘Poetry is but spoken painting,’” quoted Armstrong, smiling; “and I should be pleased indeed were I able to put on canvas the picture I now see before me.”
“Since you cannot do that, suppose you write a sonnet.”
Armstrong met her arch smile firmly. The girlish abandon under the influence of new surroundings awoke in him a side of his nature which he had not previously realized he possessed. Stooping, he gently held her face between his hands and looked deep into her responsive eyes before replying:
“‘Say from what vein did Love procure the gold
To make those sunny tresses? From what thorn
Stole he the rose, and whence the dew of morn,
Bidding them breathe and live in Beauty’s mould?
What depth of ocean gave the pearls that told
Those gentle accents sweet, tho’ rarely born?
Whence came so many graces to adorn
That brow more fair than summer skies unfold?
Oh! say what angels lead, what spheres control
The song divine which wastes my life away?
(Who can with trifles now my senses move?)
What sun gave birth unto the lofty soul
Of those enchanting eyes, whose glances stray
To burn and freeze my heart—the sport of Love?’”
Helen made no reply for several moments after Armstrong ceased speaking. Then she held out her hand to him and looked up into his face.
“I never knew before that you were a real poet,” she said, quietly.
“I wish I were—and such a poet! My precious Petrarch, for whom you profess so little fondness, is responsible for that most splendid tribute ever paid to woman.”