Some forethought indispensable. For see,
Suppose that you to-day should write a sonnet,
And, scorning forethought, you should lavish on it
Your last reserve, your all, of poetry,
So that, to-morrow, when you set about
Your next song, you should find yourself cleaned out,
Heavens! how your friends the critics then would crow!

FALK.
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?
From something there your glances never wander.

LIND.
No, you are wrong--I'm just absorbed in being--