But you, whom Nature made for high endeavour,
Are you content the fields of air to tread
Hanging your poet’s life upon a thread
That at my pleasure I can slip and sever?
Falk [hurriedly].
What is the date to-day?
Svanhild [more gently].
Why, now, that’s right!
Mind well this day, and heed it, and beware;
Trust to your own wings only for your flight,