Martin went back to his pearl-diving article, which would have been finished sooner if it had not been broken in upon so frequently by his attempts to write poetry.

His poems were love poems, inspired by Ruth, but they were never completed.

Not in a day could he learn to chant in noble verse.

Rhyme and metre and structure were serious enough in themselves, but there was, over and beyond them, an intangible and evasive something that he caught in all great poetry, but which he could not catch and imprison in his own.

It was the elusive spirit of poetry itself that he sensed and sought after but could not capture.