to unmarried Man.

FALK [after gazing a moment at her in meditative sympathy].
That such must be your lot I long had guessed.
When first I met you, I can well recall,
You seemed to me quite other than the rest,
Beyond the comprehension of them all.
They sat at table,--fragrant tea a-brewing,
And small-talk humming with the tea in tune,
The young girls blushing and the young men cooing,
Like pigeons on a sultry afternoon.
Old maids and matrons volubly averred
Morality and faith's supreme felicity,
Young wives were loud in praise of domesticity,
While you stood lonely like a mateless bird.
And when at last the gabbling clamour rose
To a tea-orgy, a debauch of prose,
You seemed a piece of silver, newly minted,
Among foul notes and coppers dulled and dinted.
You were a coin imported, alien, strange,
Here valued at another rate of change,
Not passing current in that babel mart
Of poetry and butter, cheese and art.
Then--while Miss Jay in triumph took the field--

SVANHILD [gravely].
Her knight behind her, like a champion bold,
His hat upon his elbow, like a shield--

FALK.
Your mother nodded to your untouched cup:
"Drink, Svanhild dear, before your tea grows cold."
And then you drank the vapid liquor up,
The mawkish brew beloved of young and old.
But that name gripped me with a sudden spell;
The grim old Volsungs as they fought and fell,
With all their faded aeons, seemed to rise
In never-ending line before my eyes.
In you I saw a Svanhild, like the old,(3)
But fashioned to the modern age's mould.
Sick of its hollow warfare is the world;
Its lying banner it would fain have furled;
But when the world does evil, its offence
Is blotted in the blood of innocence.

SVANHILD [with gentle irony].
I think, at any rate, the fumes of tea
Must answer for that direful fantasy;
But 'tis your least achievement, past dispute,
To hear the spirit speaking, when 'tis mute.

FALK [with emotion].
Nay, Svanhild, do not jest: behind your scoff
Tears glitter,--O, I see them plain enough.
And I see more: when you to dust are fray'd,
And kneaded to a formless lump of clay,
Each bungling dilettante's scalpel-blade
On you his dull devices shall display.
The world usurps the creature of God's hand
And sets its image in the place of His,
Transforms, enlarges that part, lightens this;
And when upon the pedestal you stand
Complete, cries out in triumph: "Now she is
At last what woman ought to be: Behold,
How plastically calm, ho