Nathan complied.
“Now what does it mean in plain Vermont jaw-music?”
Nathan was beginning to forget his dizziness.
“It means that to make poetry read smoothly the lines in each verse must have exactly the same number of syllables. They must be emphasized in the same way in the same place in all the verses and yet give perfect emphasis. You’ve just got a lot of lines here with the final words rhyming.”
“But you said it didn’t say anything!” Caleb was not angry so much as hurt, grievously hurt. “I allus thought it said a lot,” he added, with a little catch in his voice.
“I mean something really fine and beautiful and rare different from the ordinary way we write or think or talk, if you understand what I mean. For instance, you say in your first line that somebody’s eyes are like the stars and his voice——”
“Her voice!” corrected old Caleb.
“—Her voice is like the dew. Well, that doesn’t really mean anything. Nobody ever saw a woman with eyes like actual stars or a voice like real dew, because dew doesn’t make any noise, anyhow, let alone having a voice. Poetry tries to say things better and softer and finer than any one has ever said ’em before and that’s where you’ve fallen down.”
“How would you say it?”
Caleb had come across, sunk down into the creaky chair with his knees parted, his bulbous finger tips pressed together between them, the world and business forgot,—a gray-haired man seeking pointers in rhyming from a minstrel with a bashed head.