Far as the eye can travel, all is drought,
And nowhere peeps one spray of verdure out!
[Svanhild comes out on to the verandah with a flowering rose-tree which she sets down.
Yes one—yes one—!
Svanhild.
Falk, in the dark?
Falk.
And fearless!
Darkness to me is fair, and light is cheerless
But are not <g>you</g> afraid in yonder walls
Where the lamp's light on sallow corpses falls—
Svanhild.
Shame!
Falk [looking after Strawman who appears at the window].
He was once so brilliant and so strong;
Warred with the world to win his mistress; passed
For Custom's doughtiest iconoclast;
And poured forth love in pæans of glad song—!
Look at him now! In solemn robes and wraps,
A two-legged drama on his own collapse!
