50 WITH EARTH AND SKY 
of sky, lounging along tawny footpaths where 
no foot fall was, wandering amidst perpetuated 
drought where the clouds all but always shammed 
rain and where rains were fenced out by in- 
credible hedges of eternal mountains, a leisurer 
on the desert where “manyana” seized his feet 
and his dreams and the lotus lily grew on Niles 
of blistering sand and he had inhaled its nepenthe. 
A desert and the domed sky and the haughty 
mountains, aristocrats of the sky, at far removes 
and the smoking wastes of the unwaterable plains, 
and one man who loved it all and craved it all 
and was wistful in it, and whose soul, more than 
half ashamed, sometimes whispered, “Let us 
never go hence.” 
But we shall find no posy this day. Nature 
will accord us no nosegay of the desert. We 
shall wear the splendor of the sky for a purple 
cloak and inhale the sage brush perfume for our 
mignonette. We need no posy. We have our 
share and more. Would a body on the wide 
and rippling sea murmur because he could not 
gather roses there? I think not. But this is 
God’s sea. His inland sea, God’s sea of sand— 
all shore—where sands answer to the coming 
and the going of the winds. 
So am I calm and indolently glad and strangely 
and infinitely refreshed by this desert. 
What shall be said for a man who knows no 
more than to enjoy everything? Everything? 
We must stand him on the dunce’s stool and bid 
