Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Heinemann Volume 3).djvu/165

 For who's to furnish the supplies For such a giant enterprise? To put a Mad-house up would come, Believe me, to a pretty sum, If all whom need and merit fitted, Should be within its walls admitted. We must not build for our caprice, But note Time's current as it glides;— The world moves on with giant strides, Last year abundance, famine this; You see to what a monstrous girth The folks' necessities have swell'd, Talents for everything on earth, Headlong by seven-league boots propell'd, Are swarming madly to the birth. Thus it would be too dear a jest To build posterity a nest And let self, wife, and children go; This tooth, I say, we can't afford: Out with it therefore, by the Lord!

And then, there's the great Hall, you know, For any madder than the rest.

[Delighted.]

Yes, it would mostly be to spare! Why, Brand, you've hit the nail-head there! If fortunate our project's fate is, We get to boot—a Mad-house gratis; Here, shelter'd by the selfsame roof, And by the selfsame flag defended, All the essential strands are blended That tinge and tone our social woof.