Loves Comedy | Page 3

early summer; the fruit-trees are in flower.
When the Curtain rises, MRS. HALM, ANNA, and MISS JAY are sitting on the verandah, the first two engaged in embroidery, the last with a book. In the summer-house are seen FALK, LIND, GULDSTAD, and STIVER: a punch-bowl and glasses are on the table. SVANHILD sits alone in the background by the water.

FALK [rises, lifts his glass, and sings].
Sun-glad day in garden shady Was but made for thy delight: What though promises of May-day Be annulled by Autumn's blight?
Apple-blossom white and splendid Drapes thee in its glowing tent,-- Let it, then, when day is ended, Strew the closes storm-besprent.
CHORUS OF GENTLEMEN.
Let it, then, when day is ended, etc.
FALK.
Wherefore seek the harvest's guerdon While the tree is yet in bloom? Wherefore drudge beneath the burden Of an unaccomplished doom? Wherefore let the scarecrow clatter Day and night upon the tree? Brothers mine, the sparrows' chatter Has a cheerier melody.
CHORUS.
Brothers mine, the sparrow's chatter, etc.
FALK.
Happy songster! Wherefore scare him From our blossom-laden bower? Rather for his music spare him All our future, flower by flower; Trust me, 'twill be cheaply buying Present song with future fruit; List the proverb, "Time is flying;--" Soon our garden music's mute.
CHORUS.
List the proverb, etc.
FALK.
I will live in song and gladness,-- Then, when every bloom is shed, Sweep together, scarce in sadness, All that glory, wan and dead: Fling the gates wide! Bruise and batter, Tear and trample, hoof and tusk; I have plucked the flower, what matter Who devours the withered husk!
CHORUS.
I have plucked the flower, etc. [They clink and empty their glasses.
FALK [to the ladies]. There--that's the song you asked me for; but pray Be lenient to it--I can't think to-day.
GULDSTAD. Oh, never mind the sense--the sound's the thing.
MISS JAY [looking round]. But Svanhild, who was eagerest to hear--? When Falk began, she suddenly took wing And vanished--
ANNA [pointing towards the back]. No, for there she sits--I see her.
MRS. HALM [sighing]. That child! Heaven knows, she's past my comprehending!
MISS JAY. But, Mr. Falk, I thought the lyric's ending Was not so rich in--well, in poetry, As others of the stanzas seemed to be.
STIVER. Why yes, and I am sure it could not tax Your powers to get a little more inserted--
FALK [clinking glasses with him]. You cram it in, like putty into cracks, Till lean is into streaky fat converted.
STIVER [unruffled]. Yes, nothing easier--I, too, in my day Could do the trick.
GULDSTAD. Dear me! Were you a poet?
MISS JAY. My Stiver! Yes!
STIVER. Oh, in a humble way.
MISS JAY [to the ladies]. His nature is romantic.
MRS. HALM. Yes, we know it.
STIVER. Not now; it's ages since I turned a rhyme.
FALK. Yes varnish and romance go off with time. But in the old days--?
STIVER. Well, you see, 'twas when I was in love.
FALK. Is that time over, then? Have you slept off the sweet intoxication?
STIVER. I'm now engaged--I hold official station-- That's better than in love, I apprehend!
FALK. Quite so! You're in the right my good old friend. The worst is past--vous voila bien avance-- Promoted from mere lover to fiance.
STIVER [with a smile of complacent recollection]. It's strange to think of it--upon my word, I half suspect my memory of lying-- [Turns to FALK. But seven years ago--it sounds absurd!-- I wasted office hours in versifying.
FALK. What! Office hours--!
STIVER. Yes, such were my transgressions.
GULDSTAD [ringing on his glass]. Silence for our solicitor's confessions!
STIVER. But chiefly after five, when I was free, I'd rattle off whole reams of poetry-- Ten--fifteen folios ere I went to bed--
FALK. I see--you gave your Pegasus his head, And off he tore--
STIVER. On stamped or unstamped paper-- 'Twas all the same to him--he'd prance and caper--
FALK. The spring of poetry flowed no less flush? But how, pray, did you teach it first to gush?
STIVER. By aid of love's divining-rod, my friend! Miss Jay it was that taught me where to bore, My fiancee--she became so in the end-- For then she was--
FALK. Your love and nothing more.
STIVER [continuing]. 'Twas a strange time; I could not read a bit; I tuned my pen instead of pointing it; And when along the foolscap sheet it raced, It twangled music to the words I traced;-- At last by letter I declared my flame To her--to her--
FALK. Whose fiancee you became.
STIVER. In course of post her answer came to hand-- The motion granted--judgment in my favour!
FALK. And you felt bigger, as you wrote, and braver, To find you'd brought your venture safe to land!
STIVER. Of course.
FALK. And you bade the Muse farewell?
STIVER. I've felt no lyric impulse, truth to tell, From that day forth. My vein appeared to peter Entirely out; and now, if I essay To turn a verse or two for New Year's Day, I make the veriest hash of rhyme and metre, And--I've no notion what the