r then she was--

FALK.
Your love and nothing more.

STIVER [continuing].
'Twas a strange time; I could not read a bit;
I tuned my pen instead of pointing it;
And when along the foolscap sheet it raced,
It twangled music to the words I traced;--
At last by letter I declared my flame
To her--to her--

FALK.
Whose _fiancee_ you became.

STIVER.
In course of post her answer came to hand--
The motion granted--judgment in my favour!

FALK.
And you felt bigger, as you wrote, and braver,
To find you'd brought your venture safe to land!

STIVER.
Of course.

FALK.
And you bade the Muse farewell?

STIVER.
I've felt no lyric impulse, truth to tell,
From that day forth. My vein appeared to peter
Entirely out; and now, if I essay
To turn a verse or two for New Year's Day,
I make the veriest hash of rhyme and metre,
And--I've no notion what the cause can be--
It turns to law and not to poetry.

GULDSTAD [clinks glasses with him].
And trust me, you're no whit the worse for that!
[To Falk.
You think the stream of life is flowing solely
To bear you to the goal you're aiming at--
But here I lodge a protest energetic,
Say what you will, against its wretched moral.
A masterly economy and new
To let the birds play havoc at their pleasure
Among your fruit-trees, fruitless now for you,
And suffer flocks and herds to trample through
Your garden, and lay waste its springtide treasure!
A pretty prospect, truly, for next year!

FALK.
Oh, next, next, next! The thought I loathe and fear
That these four letters timidly express--
It beggars millionaires in happiness!
If I could be the autocrat of speech
But for one hour, that hateful word I'd banish;
I'd send it packing out of mortal reach,
As B and G from Knudsen's Grammar vanish.

STIVER.
Why should the word of hope enrage you thus?

FALK.
Because it darkens God's fair earth for us.
"Next year," "next love," "next life,"--my soul is vext
To see this world in thraldom to "the next."
'Tis this dull forethought, bent on future prizes,
That millionaires in gladness pauperises.
Far as the eye can reach, it blurs the age;
All rapture of the moment it destroys;
No one dares taste in peace life's simplest joys
Until he's struggled on another stage--
And there arriving, can he there repose?
No--to a new "next" off he flies again;
On, on, unresting to the grave he goes;
And God knows i