And wore, instead of ribbons, shavings once, And was the belle and made a match that night. Here's Mr. Hallowes, sir. Smith. The same for him. Enter Hallowes. Topsy goes out, and returns as before, and goes out again. Hallowes. Smith, I congratulate you. Come, your hand. Smith. Thank you; I'm very pleased indeed. On what? Hallowes. On the great gladness you're about to feel. I've lost my post--dismissed--incompetence. Smith. So soon! I said three months: it's just three weeks. Business is worse than teaching, then. Hallowes. Oh, worse! Give me a week to coin its condemnation! Business--the world's work--is the sale of lies: Not goods, but trade-marks; and still more and more In every branch becomes the sale of money: Why, goods are now the means of bartering gold! Smith. It fits these reeling times of tail-wagged dogs. Hallowes. But wish me joy. Smith. Joy, friend, till pain be ease! Hallowes. Now will I tell you what I mean to do. Garth's in the North, a hamlet like a cave, Nestling unknown in tawny Merlin's side, A mount, brindled with scars and waterways. The windows, Argus-eyed with knotted panes That under heavy brows of roses blink Blind guard, have never wept with hailstones stung; No antique, gnarled, and wrinkled, roundwood porch, Whiskered with hollyhocks in this old thorpe Has ever felt the razor of the East: No rail, no coach, no tourist passes there: But in the brooding evening from her seat, A worn tree-trunk, the toothless beldame leaps As lithe as superstition, says a saw, And kills the toad that in the channel hops; Far up the mountain children's voices ring; The quoiters cry; and past the ivied inn A chastened brook tells all its pebbled beads; Between the bourtrie-bushes and the thorns The commonest bird that sings is wonderful, So empty are the spaces of the air From any breath of modern weariness. There will I live and walk the mountain-side, Looking across the strath upon a stream, A beakerful of water, spilt along A winding strip of green and bosky spray, That showers in silver when light-fingered winds Turn up the leaves: a ridge, fire-reared and low, Of coppice-covered hills, scalloped against A loftier mass of purple, nobly borne, Gives body to the sunset: night and day, Asleep or waking, earth in heaven's lap lies. Smith. And is this to be wholly holiday? Hallowes. I shall make poetry--a line a day, If nothing more. I'm twenty: I may count On ten years yet. Three thousand lines, each line A very mountain from whose sun-gilt crest The stormy world a peaceful picture seems. I shall upheave and range a chain like this: Realms shall rejoice in it: my fame shall grow For ever like the sward. Smith. Let fame alone. Hallowes. You misconceive: fame is the breath of power: What valid work was ever for itself Wrought solely, be it war, art, statesmanship?