[_Uneasily._ Exalted? Yes, that’s what will happen with me;— No other result can so much as be thought of. Fate will assist me away from this place, And arrange matters so that I get a fresh start. This is only a trial; deliverance will follow,— If only the Lord lets me keep my health. [_Dismisses his misgivings, lights a cigar, stretches himself, and gazes out over the desert._ What an enormous, limitless waste!— Far in the distance an ostrich is striding.— What can one fancy was really God’s Meaning in all of this voidness and deadness? This desert, bereft of all sources of life; This burnt-up cinder, that profits no one; This patch of the world, that for ever lies fallow; This corpse, that never, since earth’s creation, Has brought its Maker so much as thanks,— Why was it created?—How spendthrift is Nature!— Is that sea in the east there, that dazzling expanse All gleaming? It can’t be; ’tis but a mirage. The sea’s to the west; it lies piled up behind me, Dammed out from the desert by a sloping ridge. [_A thought flashes through his mind._ Dammed out? Then I could——? The ridge is narrow. Dammed out? It wants but a gap, a canal,— Like a flood of life would the waters rush In through the channel, and fill the desert![87] Soon would the whole of yon red-hot grave Spread forth, a breezy and rippling sea. The oases would rise in the midst, like islands; Atlas would tower in green cliffs on the north; Sailing-ships would, like stray birds on the wing, Skim to the south, on the caravans’ track. Life-giving breezes would scatter the choking Vapours, and dew would distil from the clouds. People would build themselves town on town, And grass would grow green round the swaying palm-trees. The southland, behind the Sahara’s wall, Would make a new seaboard for civilisation. Steam would set Timbuctoo’s factories spinning; Bornu would be colonised apace; The naturalist would pass safely through Habes In his railway-car to the Upper Nile. In the midst of my sea, on a fat oasis, I will replant the Norwegian race; The Dalesman’s blood is next door to royal; Arabic crossing will do the rest. Skirting a bay, on a shelving strand, I’ll build the chief city, Peeropolis. The world is decrepit! Now comes the turn Of Gyntiana, my virgin land! [_Springs up._ Had I but capital, soon ’twould be done.— A gold key to open the gate of the sea! A crusade against Death! The close-fisted old churl Shall open the sack he lies brooding upon. Men rave about freedom in every land;— Like the ass in the ark, I will send forth a cry O’er the world, and will baptize to liberty