f there's any resting then.

MISS JAY.
Fie, Mr. Falk, such sentiments are shocking.

ANNA [pensively].
Oh, I can understand the feeling quite;
I am sure at bottom Mr. Falk is right.

MISS JAY [perturbed].
My Stiver mustn't listen to his mocking.
He's rather too eccentric even now.--
My dear, I want you.

STIVER [occupied in cleaning his pipe].
Presently, my dear.

GULDSTAD [to FALK].
One thing at least to me is very clear;--
And this is that you cannot but allow
Some forethought indispensable. For see,
Suppose that you to-day should write a sonnet,
And, scorning forethought, you should lavish on it
Your last reserve, your all, of poetry,
So that, to-morrow, when you set about
Your next song, you should find yourself cleaned out,
Heavens! how your friends the critics then would crow!

FALK.
D'you think they'd notice I was bankrupt? No!
Once beggared of ideas, I and they
Would saunter arm in arm the selfsame way--
[Breaking off.
But Lind! why, what's the matter with you, pray?
You sit there dumb and dreaming--I suspect you're
Deep in the mysteries of architecture.

LIND [collecting himself].
I? What should make you think so?

FALK.
I observe.
Your eyes are glued to the verandah yonder--
You're studying, mayhap, its arches' curve,
Or can it be its pillars' strength you ponder,
The door perhaps, with hammered iron hinges?
From something there your glances never wander.

LIND.
No, you are wrong--I'm just absorbed in being--
Drunk with the hour--naught craving, naught foreseeing.
I feel as though I stood, my life complete,
With all earth's riches scattered at my feet.
Thanks for your song of happiness and spring--
From out my inmost heart it seemed to spring.
[Lifts his glass and exchanges a glance, unobserved,
with ANNA.
Here's to the blossom in its fragrant pride!
What reck we of the fruit of autumn-tide?
[Empties his glass.

FALK [looks at him with surprise and emotion,
but assumes a light tone].
Behold, fair ladies! though you scorn me quite,
Here I have made an easy proselyte.
His hymn-book yesterday was all he cared for--
To-day e'en dithyrambics he's prepared for!
We poets must be born, cries every judge;
But prose-folks, now and then, like Strasburg geese,
Gorge themselves so inhumanly obese
On rhyming balderdash and rhythmic fudge,
That, when cleaned out,