The Forsyte Saga - Volume 3

Jon, on the other hand, sat awake at his window with a bit of paper and

a pencil, writing his first "real poem" by the light of a candle because

there was not enough moon to see by, only enough to make the night seem

fluttery and as if engraved on silver. Just the night for Fleur to walk,

and turn her eyes, and lead on-over the hills and far away. And Jon,

deeply furrowed in his ingenuous brow, made marks on the paper and

rubbed them out and wrote them in again, and did all that was necessary

for the completion of a work of art; and he had a feeling such as the

winds of Spring must have, trying their first songs among the coming

blossom. Jon was one of those boys (not many) in whom a home-trained

love of beauty had survived school life. He had had to keep it to

himself, of course, so that not even the drawing-master knew of it; but

it was there, fastidious and clear within him. And his poem seemed to

him as lame and stilted as the night was winged. But he kept it, all the

same. It was a "beast," but better than nothing as an expression of the

inexpressible. And he thought with a sort of discomfiture: 'I shan't be

able to show it to Mother.' He slept terribly well, when he did sleep,

overwhelmed by novelty.