BUILDERS OF HIGHWAYS
If he who was wise to the sparrow's fall
Didn't have something to do with it all.
Didn't have something to do with it all.
Over the broad Willamette go
Into the Coast Range—learn to know
Who are the Vikings—see them rise
Out of the gulches into the skies;
There are plummet-lines dropped through the hearts of these
And they're girthed like the pillars of Hercules!
Nursed by the centuries, still they stand,
The Viking Spruce of the bottom-land.
Into the Coast Range—learn to know
Who are the Vikings—see them rise
Out of the gulches into the skies;
There are plummet-lines dropped through the hearts of these
And they're girthed like the pillars of Hercules!
Nursed by the centuries, still they stand,
The Viking Spruce of the bottom-land.
And ever the pageant swings along,
Blossoms and fruit and birds and song—
Sword-ferns high-heaped beneath the firs,
Glistening like emerald scimiters;
Foxglove and fireweed—sunlight flashes
Blotching the banks in purple splashes;
Salmon berries in hordes untold—
Luscious clusters of dangling gold;
Elders above them, bending branches,
Falling in ruby-red avalanches,
Hedging the roadways, climbing back—
Up through the alders and tamarack;
And over the bridges, rumbling, coasting—
Oh God of the Humble—keep us from boasting!
Blossoms and fruit and birds and song—
Sword-ferns high-heaped beneath the firs,
Glistening like emerald scimiters;
Foxglove and fireweed—sunlight flashes
Blotching the banks in purple splashes;
Salmon berries in hordes untold—
Luscious clusters of dangling gold;
Elders above them, bending branches,
Falling in ruby-red avalanches,
Hedging the roadways, climbing back—
Up through the alders and tamarack;
And over the bridges, rumbling, coasting—
Oh God of the Humble—keep us from boasting!
[16]
