Page:The Yellow Book - 07.djvu/23

 the new-born poem, all blots and dashes like the first draft of a composer's score, and the poet, deftly picking his way among the erasures and interlineations, read aloud the beautiful words—with a full sense of their beauty!—to ears that deemed them more beautiful even than they were. The owners of this now valuable copyright allow me to irradiate my prose with three of the verses.

"Ah! what," half-chanted, half-crooned the poet Ah! what a garden is your hair!—
 * Such treasure as the kings of old,
 * In coffers of the beaten gold,

Laid up on earth—and left it there." So tender a reference to hair whose beauty others beside the poet had loved must needs make a tender interruption the only kind of interruption—the poet could have forgiven—and "Who," he continued— Who was the artist of your mouth?
 * What master out of old Japan
 * Wrought it so dangerous to man "

And here it was but natural that laughter and kisses should once more interrupt— Those strange blue jewels of your eyes,
 * Painting the lily of your face,
 * What goldsmith set them in their place-

Forget-me-nots of Paradise.

And that blest river of your voice,
 * Whose merry silver stirs the rest
 * Of waterlilies in your breast "

At last, in spite of more interruptions, the poem came to an end