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? The window blinds, and their artistic fringes? 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, their very souls are thick With lyric lard and greasy rhetoric. [_To_ LIND. Your praise, however, I shall not forget; We’ll sweep the lyre henceforward in duet. MISS JAY. You, Mr. Falk, are hard at work, no doubt, Here in these rural solitudes delightful, Where at your own sweet will you roam about— MRS. HALM [_smiling_]. Oh, no, his laziness is something frightful. MISS JAY. What! here at Mrs. Halm’s! that’s most surprising— Surely it’s just the place for poetising— [_Pointing to the right._ That summer-house, for instance, in the wood Sequestered, name me any place that could Be more conducive to poetic mood—