Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Heinemann Volume 1).pdf/343

 If I could be the autocrat of speech But for one hour, that hateful word I'd banish; I'd send it packing out of mortal reach, As B and G from Knudsen's Grammar vanish.

Why should the word of hope enrage you thus?

Because it darkens God's fair earth for us. "Next year," "next love," "next life,"—my soul is vext To see this world in thraldom to "the next." 'Tis this dull forethought, bent on future prizes, That millionaires in gladness pauperises. Far as the eye can reach, it blurs the age; All rapture of the moment it destroys; No one dares taste in peace life's simplest joys Until he's struggled on another stage— And there arriving, can he there repose? No—to a new "next" off he flies again; On, on, unresting, to the grave he goes; And God knows if there's any resting then.

Fie, Mr. Falk, such sentiments are shocking.

[pensively].

Oh, I can understand the feeling quite; I am sure at bottom Mr. Falk is right.