Schubert too wrote for silence: half his work
Lay like frozen Rhine till a summer came

That warmed the grass above him.

Even so !

His music lives now with a mighty youth.

Armg. Do you think yours will live when you are dead?

Leo.-Pfui! The time was, I drank that home

brewed wine

And found it heady, while my blood was young:
Now it scarce warms me. Tipple it as I may,
I am sober still, and say: 'My old friend Leo,
Much grain is wasted in the world and rots ;
Why not thy handful?'

Armg.

Strange! since I have known you

Till now I never wondered how you lived.

When I sang well—that was your jubilee.

But you were old already.

Leo.

Yes, child, yes :

Youth thinks itself the goal of each old life;

Age has but travelled from a far-off time

Just to be ready for youth's service. Well!

It was my chief delight to perfect you.

Armg.—Good Leo! You have lived on little joys. But your delight in me is crushed for ever.

Your pains, where are they now? They shaped intent Which action frustrates; shaped an inward sense Which is but keen despair, the agony

Of highest vision in the lowest pit.

The best intent

Grasps but a living present which may grow
Like any unfledged bird.—Armgart.

Are not to feed the paupers of the world.

Had never any judgment in cold blood-
Thinks all perhaps were better otherwise,
Till rapture brings a reason.—Leo.

What is fame

But the benignant strength of One, transformed To joy of Many? Tributes, plaudits come

As necessary breathing of such joy,

And may they come to me !—Armgart.

I hate your epigrams and pointed saws

Whose narrow truth is but broad falsity.

Armgart.

-0

Life is not rounded in an epigram,

And saying aught, we leave a world unsaid.

The Graf.

Truth has rough flavours if we bite it through.

The Graf.

I choose to walk high with sublimer dread
Rather than crawl in safety.—Armgart.

I will not feed on doing great tasks ill,
Dull the world's sense with mediocrity,
And live by trash that smothers excellence.
Armgart.

-0

Commonness is its own security.—Armgart.

(To the Doctor.)

-0

O you stand

And look compassionate now, but when Death came

With mercy in his hands, you hindered him.

I did not choose to live and have your pity.

You never told me, never gave me choice

To die a singer, lightning-struck, unmaimed,

Or live what you would make me with your cures-
A self accursed with consciousness of change,
A mind that lives in nought but members lopped,

A power turned to pain-as meaningless

As letters fallen asunder that once made

A hymn of rapture.

Armgart.

-0

An inborn passion gives a rebel's right:
I would rebel and die in twenty worlds
Sooner than bear the yoke of thwarted life,

Each keenest sense turned into keen distaste,
Hunger not satisfied but kept alive

Breathing in languor half a century.-Armgart.

Armgart.-Now I am fallen dark; I sit in gloom, Remembering bitterly. Yet you speak truth ;

I wearied you, it seems; took all your help
As cushioned nobles use a weary serf,

Not looking at his face.`

As a small symbol for a mighty sum-
The sum of claims unpaid for myriad lives.
I think you never set your loss beside
That mighty deficit. Is your work gone-
The prouder queenly work that paid itself
And yet was overpaid with men's applause :
Are you no longer chartered, privileged,
But sunk to simple woman's penury,
To ruthless Nature's chary average-
Where is the rebel's right for you alone?
Noble rebellion lifts a common load;
But what is he who flings his own load off
And leaves his fellows toiling? Rebel's right?
Say rather, the deserter's. O, you smiled
From your clear height on all the million lots
Which yet you brand as abject.

Armg.

I was blind

With too much happiness: true vision comes

Only, it seems, with sorrow. Were there one
This moment near me, suffering what I feel,
And needing me for comfort in her pang-
Then it were worth the while to live; not else.

Walp.—One—near you-why, they throng! you hardly stir

But your act touches them. We touch afar.

For did not swarthy slaves of yesterday

Leap in their bondage at the Hebrews' flight,

Which touched them through the thrice millennial

dark?

But you can find the sufferer you need

With touch less subtle..

Armg.

Who has need of me?

Walp.-Love finds the need it fills.

Leo.

We must bury our dead joys

And live above them with a living world.

Armgart.—Dear Leo, I will bury my dead joy.

Leo.-Mothers do so, bereaved; then learn to love Another's living child.