matter at what cost of bitter blame!"

FALK [clenching his fists in inward agitation].
Heaven be my witness--!

SVANHILD.
No, you must be told:--
For such a childish sport I am too old.
But you, whom Nature made for high endeavour,
Are you content the fields of air to tread
Hanging your poet's life upon a thread
That at my pleasure I can slip and sever?

FALK [hurriedly].
What is the date to-day?

SVANHILD [more gently].
Why, now, that's right!
Mind well this day, and heed it, and beware;
Trust to your own wings only for your flight,
Sure, if they do not break, that they will bear.
The paper poem for the desk is fit,
That which is lived alone has life in it;
That only has the wings that scale the height;
Choose now between them, poet: be, or write!
[Nearer to him.
Now I have done what you besought me; now
My requiem is chanted from the bough;
My only one; now all my songs are flown;
Now, if you will, I'm ready for the stone!

[She goes into the house; FALK remains motionless,
looking after her; far out on the fjord is seen a
boat, from which the following chorus is faintly
heard:

CHORUS.

My wings I open, my sails spread wide,
And cleave like an eagle life's glassy tide;
Gulls follow my furrow's foaming;
Overboard with the ballast of care and cark;
And what if I shatter my roaming bark,
It is passing sweet to be roaming!

FALK [starting from a reverie].
What, music? Ah, it will be Lind's quartette
Getting their jubilation up.--Well met!
[To GULDSTAD, who enters with an overcoat on his arm.
Ah, slipping off, sir?

GULDSTAD.
Yes, with your goodwill.
But let me first put on my overcoat.
We prose-folks are susceptible to chill;
The night wind takes us by the tuneless throat.
Good evening!

FALK.
Sir, a word ere you proceed!
Show me a task, a mighty one, you know--!
I'm going in for life--!

GULDSTAD [with ironical emphasis].
Well, in you go!
You'll find that you are in for it, indeed.

FALK [looking reflectively at him, says slowly].
There is my program, furnished in a phrase.
[In a lively outburst.
Now I have wakened from my dreaming days,
I've cast the die of life's supreme transaction,
I'll show you--else the devil take me--

GULDSTAD.
Fie,
N