BUILDERS OF HIGHWAYS
Masterfulbuilders! You who’ve plannedYour limitless highways through our land,Splendid in vision—well have you wrought,Leaving your trails where trails were not;Weavers—weaving giganticallyInto a boundless tapestry,Systems of travel skillfully traced,Hither and thither—interlaced,Gathering, linking, chain on chain,Corn-land and pasture, fields of grain,Acres of orchard rolling down,Forest and homestead, nestling town,Binding our counties, joining our states,Breaking the locks of our cities’ gates,Letting humanity’s stream rush throughInto the open, into the blue,Into the sun or into the shade,Into the playgrounds you have made,Treading where never before they’ve trod—Touching the earth and seeing God!Long have you wrestled, unconfoundedWith problems the grim old earth propounded;Meeting each taunting challenge whileShe watched with cold, sardonic smile,Flinching at nothing your labor met,Writing your answer in dirt and sweat.First with your transit, pounding stakes—Rotten logs, briars, sticks and snakes;Trees of the thicket hatchet-scarred,Blazing tomorrow’s boulevard;Shaping the New World’s big romance,Unloosing your swarms of human ants,Slashing the willows, crowding inUnder the maples and chinkapin;Tottering timbers—see them crash,Deafening thud and crunch and gash,Tearing their rifts where boughs arch high,Baring blue holes in the gaping sky;Follows the blasting—dynamite,Deep in the damp earth tamped in tight,Sputtering sparkInto the dark,Travels the fuse to the buried guns,Vomiting stumps in hurtling tons,Falling back mangled, shattered, torn,Into the clay where they were born.Through pine-pillared aisles the thunderings ring,Echoing canyons answering;Enter the horses—lashing reins,Yelling and curses, jangling chains,Snorting and straining, steaming brutes,Grappling hooks shackled to stubborn roots,Snug in their sockets holding fast—Steadily pulling, they yield at last!Shovel of steam—omniverous scoop,Gouging the way for one more loop;Rearing a wall that will prevailAgainst the push of sliding shale;Peeling a slope to fill a draw;Stuffing the crusher’s hungry mawThat crumbles to bits the rock you’ve fedTo blanket a roadway’s winding bed;These are the digits running throughThe problems that Nature’s handed you.And we of the people—we for whomThese miracles are, behold we come!Driving our chariots blazoned bright,Crimson and yellow and pink and white,Silver and black and gray and green,Rattletrap Lizzie and limousine,Bulgy with bedding, grip and can,Lashed to the back and tucked to the van;Letting our home-town banners flame,Advising the world from whence we came,From everywhere under the dusty sun—From Mosier, White Salmon, Pendleton,From Boise, Seattle, Saginaw,From Buffalo, Little Rock, Waukesha;Still we are coming, see the train—From “all points east” to Bangor, Maine;Up from the Dixies, looming still,From Charleston, Havana, Jacksonville;Down from the Old Dominion, see—From Montreal, Winnipeg, Calgary,We of the people are on our way,Turning the world to a holiday!And vast are the hollows from crest to crestWhere stretches the hand of the big NorthwestAnd out of the winds from her frozen peakA welcome speaks:“Come all you people! Come and keepTryst in our mountains! Play and sleep,Wrapped in the silence here that liesUnder our star-jeweled western skies;Wake if you will and see the sunUnveiling our canyons one by one,Slanting his golden fingers tillThe shadows have crept from each drowsy hill,Rousing the giants in their beds—See how they lift their hoary headsUp through the purple robe of nightInto the light!Tahoma—the Mountain that was God!Jefferson, Adams, St. Helens, Hood!Hold fast to your visions and your dreams,Memories born of our laughing streams,Our cataracts, castles, towering domes—Oh carry them back to your million homes!Drink, oh you people! Be satisfied!Our wells of beauty are never dried.Search out each Eden that awaits—Blazed are the trails and wide the gates!”Come oh you people! Look uponThe bountiful sweep of the Oregon,Forcing a pass through the blue Cascades,Lapping the walls of her palisades,Cradled in sand-dunes gleaming white,Girdling her islands of malachite!And high on the hills where a thrush’s songTells out its gladness, there winds alongLike a sinuous serpent—twist and bend,Following on to the river’s trend,The lordliest highway that ever ranThrough the hills of the world since the dawn of man.Pride of the West! Sublime event!Columbia the Magnificent!Conceived by a poet who believed[1]Dreams should be dreamed and then achieved.And he bored him a tunnel—rock and boulder,Out of a mountain’s granite shoulder,Chiseled his windows—arching wide,Glimpsing the sky and the rolling tide;Throwing his graceful spans acrossDripping ravines of fern and moss;Charming the serpent up and downTill it lazily coiled on the lofty crown,Goal of each traveller who would beThrilled with unspeakable ecstacy.Oh climb in your chariots pink and green,Rattletrap Lizzie and limousine,Throbbing triumphantly toward the sky,(There’s never a grade but you take on high)Honking and honking, round on round,Honking again till the cliffs resound,Looping at last the Crown Point top—And there you stop!Where winds from the North, East, West and SouthTumble their clouds in the chasm’s mouth—Curtains of mist and far-off thunder—And somehow you look and look and wonderIf he who was wise to the sparrow’s fallDidn’t have something to do with it all.Over the broad Willamette goInto the Coast Range—learn to knowWho are the Vikings—see them riseOut of the gulches into the skies;There are plummet-lines dropped through the hearts of theseAnd 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 flashesBlotching 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!Ranges, ruff-backed with their jagged trees,Crawling and sprawling down into the seas,Reaching their ragged, granite handsOut through the shifting, drifting sands—Out where the wild, white horses prance,Tossing their manes—and the cormorantsStrut with the lions and blustering seals,And the sun-god reelsWith a splash of bloodInto the great, Pacific flood!And this is the welcome waiting you,Drivers of chariots gold and blue—You who fareUnder the heavens from everywhere—This is the crowning of your questWhen you’ve looked in the heart of the great Northwest!
Masterfulbuilders! You who’ve plannedYour limitless highways through our land,Splendid in vision—well have you wrought,Leaving your trails where trails were not;Weavers—weaving giganticallyInto a boundless tapestry,Systems of travel skillfully traced,Hither and thither—interlaced,Gathering, linking, chain on chain,Corn-land and pasture, fields of grain,Acres of orchard rolling down,Forest and homestead, nestling town,Binding our counties, joining our states,Breaking the locks of our cities’ gates,Letting humanity’s stream rush throughInto the open, into the blue,Into the sun or into the shade,Into the playgrounds you have made,Treading where never before they’ve trod—Touching the earth and seeing God!Long have you wrestled, unconfoundedWith problems the grim old earth propounded;Meeting each taunting challenge whileShe watched with cold, sardonic smile,Flinching at nothing your labor met,Writing your answer in dirt and sweat.First with your transit, pounding stakes—Rotten logs, briars, sticks and snakes;Trees of the thicket hatchet-scarred,Blazing tomorrow’s boulevard;Shaping the New World’s big romance,Unloosing your swarms of human ants,Slashing the willows, crowding inUnder the maples and chinkapin;Tottering timbers—see them crash,Deafening thud and crunch and gash,Tearing their rifts where boughs arch high,Baring blue holes in the gaping sky;Follows the blasting—dynamite,Deep in the damp earth tamped in tight,Sputtering sparkInto the dark,Travels the fuse to the buried guns,Vomiting stumps in hurtling tons,Falling back mangled, shattered, torn,Into the clay where they were born.Through pine-pillared aisles the thunderings ring,Echoing canyons answering;Enter the horses—lashing reins,Yelling and curses, jangling chains,Snorting and straining, steaming brutes,Grappling hooks shackled to stubborn roots,Snug in their sockets holding fast—Steadily pulling, they yield at last!Shovel of steam—omniverous scoop,Gouging the way for one more loop;Rearing a wall that will prevailAgainst the push of sliding shale;Peeling a slope to fill a draw;Stuffing the crusher’s hungry mawThat crumbles to bits the rock you’ve fedTo blanket a roadway’s winding bed;These are the digits running throughThe problems that Nature’s handed you.And we of the people—we for whomThese miracles are, behold we come!Driving our chariots blazoned bright,Crimson and yellow and pink and white,Silver and black and gray and green,Rattletrap Lizzie and limousine,Bulgy with bedding, grip and can,Lashed to the back and tucked to the van;Letting our home-town banners flame,Advising the world from whence we came,From everywhere under the dusty sun—From Mosier, White Salmon, Pendleton,From Boise, Seattle, Saginaw,From Buffalo, Little Rock, Waukesha;Still we are coming, see the train—From “all points east” to Bangor, Maine;Up from the Dixies, looming still,From Charleston, Havana, Jacksonville;Down from the Old Dominion, see—From Montreal, Winnipeg, Calgary,We of the people are on our way,Turning the world to a holiday!And vast are the hollows from crest to crestWhere stretches the hand of the big NorthwestAnd out of the winds from her frozen peakA welcome speaks:“Come all you people! Come and keepTryst in our mountains! Play and sleep,Wrapped in the silence here that liesUnder our star-jeweled western skies;Wake if you will and see the sunUnveiling our canyons one by one,Slanting his golden fingers tillThe shadows have crept from each drowsy hill,Rousing the giants in their beds—See how they lift their hoary headsUp through the purple robe of nightInto the light!Tahoma—the Mountain that was God!Jefferson, Adams, St. Helens, Hood!Hold fast to your visions and your dreams,Memories born of our laughing streams,Our cataracts, castles, towering domes—Oh carry them back to your million homes!Drink, oh you people! Be satisfied!Our wells of beauty are never dried.Search out each Eden that awaits—Blazed are the trails and wide the gates!”Come oh you people! Look uponThe bountiful sweep of the Oregon,Forcing a pass through the blue Cascades,Lapping the walls of her palisades,Cradled in sand-dunes gleaming white,Girdling her islands of malachite!And high on the hills where a thrush’s songTells out its gladness, there winds alongLike a sinuous serpent—twist and bend,Following on to the river’s trend,The lordliest highway that ever ranThrough the hills of the world since the dawn of man.Pride of the West! Sublime event!Columbia the Magnificent!Conceived by a poet who believed[1]Dreams should be dreamed and then achieved.And he bored him a tunnel—rock and boulder,Out of a mountain’s granite shoulder,Chiseled his windows—arching wide,Glimpsing the sky and the rolling tide;Throwing his graceful spans acrossDripping ravines of fern and moss;Charming the serpent up and downTill it lazily coiled on the lofty crown,Goal of each traveller who would beThrilled with unspeakable ecstacy.Oh climb in your chariots pink and green,Rattletrap Lizzie and limousine,Throbbing triumphantly toward the sky,(There’s never a grade but you take on high)Honking and honking, round on round,Honking again till the cliffs resound,Looping at last the Crown Point top—And there you stop!Where winds from the North, East, West and SouthTumble their clouds in the chasm’s mouth—Curtains of mist and far-off thunder—And somehow you look and look and wonderIf he who was wise to the sparrow’s fallDidn’t have something to do with it all.Over the broad Willamette goInto the Coast Range—learn to knowWho are the Vikings—see them riseOut of the gulches into the skies;There are plummet-lines dropped through the hearts of theseAnd 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 flashesBlotching 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!Ranges, ruff-backed with their jagged trees,Crawling and sprawling down into the seas,Reaching their ragged, granite handsOut through the shifting, drifting sands—Out where the wild, white horses prance,Tossing their manes—and the cormorantsStrut with the lions and blustering seals,And the sun-god reelsWith a splash of bloodInto the great, Pacific flood!And this is the welcome waiting you,Drivers of chariots gold and blue—You who fareUnder the heavens from everywhere—This is the crowning of your questWhen you’ve looked in the heart of the great Northwest!
Masterfulbuilders! You who’ve plannedYour limitless highways through our land,Splendid in vision—well have you wrought,Leaving your trails where trails were not;Weavers—weaving giganticallyInto a boundless tapestry,Systems of travel skillfully traced,Hither and thither—interlaced,Gathering, linking, chain on chain,Corn-land and pasture, fields of grain,Acres of orchard rolling down,Forest and homestead, nestling town,Binding our counties, joining our states,Breaking the locks of our cities’ gates,Letting humanity’s stream rush throughInto the open, into the blue,Into the sun or into the shade,Into the playgrounds you have made,Treading where never before they’ve trod—Touching the earth and seeing God!
Long have you wrestled, unconfoundedWith problems the grim old earth propounded;Meeting each taunting challenge whileShe watched with cold, sardonic smile,Flinching at nothing your labor met,Writing your answer in dirt and sweat.
First with your transit, pounding stakes—Rotten logs, briars, sticks and snakes;Trees of the thicket hatchet-scarred,Blazing tomorrow’s boulevard;Shaping the New World’s big romance,Unloosing your swarms of human ants,Slashing the willows, crowding inUnder the maples and chinkapin;Tottering timbers—see them crash,Deafening thud and crunch and gash,Tearing their rifts where boughs arch high,Baring blue holes in the gaping sky;Follows the blasting—dynamite,Deep in the damp earth tamped in tight,Sputtering sparkInto the dark,Travels the fuse to the buried guns,Vomiting stumps in hurtling tons,Falling back mangled, shattered, torn,Into the clay where they were born.
Through pine-pillared aisles the thunderings ring,Echoing canyons answering;Enter the horses—lashing reins,Yelling and curses, jangling chains,Snorting and straining, steaming brutes,Grappling hooks shackled to stubborn roots,Snug in their sockets holding fast—Steadily pulling, they yield at last!Shovel of steam—omniverous scoop,Gouging the way for one more loop;Rearing a wall that will prevailAgainst the push of sliding shale;Peeling a slope to fill a draw;Stuffing the crusher’s hungry mawThat crumbles to bits the rock you’ve fedTo blanket a roadway’s winding bed;These are the digits running throughThe problems that Nature’s handed you.
And we of the people—we for whomThese miracles are, behold we come!Driving our chariots blazoned bright,Crimson and yellow and pink and white,Silver and black and gray and green,Rattletrap Lizzie and limousine,Bulgy with bedding, grip and can,Lashed to the back and tucked to the van;Letting our home-town banners flame,Advising the world from whence we came,From everywhere under the dusty sun—From Mosier, White Salmon, Pendleton,From Boise, Seattle, Saginaw,From Buffalo, Little Rock, Waukesha;Still we are coming, see the train—From “all points east” to Bangor, Maine;Up from the Dixies, looming still,From Charleston, Havana, Jacksonville;Down from the Old Dominion, see—From Montreal, Winnipeg, Calgary,We of the people are on our way,Turning the world to a holiday!
And vast are the hollows from crest to crestWhere stretches the hand of the big NorthwestAnd out of the winds from her frozen peakA welcome speaks:“Come all you people! Come and keepTryst in our mountains! Play and sleep,Wrapped in the silence here that liesUnder our star-jeweled western skies;Wake if you will and see the sunUnveiling our canyons one by one,Slanting his golden fingers tillThe shadows have crept from each drowsy hill,Rousing the giants in their beds—See how they lift their hoary headsUp through the purple robe of nightInto the light!Tahoma—the Mountain that was God!Jefferson, Adams, St. Helens, Hood!Hold fast to your visions and your dreams,Memories born of our laughing streams,Our cataracts, castles, towering domes—Oh carry them back to your million homes!Drink, oh you people! Be satisfied!Our wells of beauty are never dried.Search out each Eden that awaits—Blazed are the trails and wide the gates!”
Come oh you people! Look uponThe bountiful sweep of the Oregon,Forcing a pass through the blue Cascades,Lapping the walls of her palisades,Cradled in sand-dunes gleaming white,Girdling her islands of malachite!And high on the hills where a thrush’s songTells out its gladness, there winds alongLike a sinuous serpent—twist and bend,Following on to the river’s trend,The lordliest highway that ever ranThrough the hills of the world since the dawn of man.Pride of the West! Sublime event!Columbia the Magnificent!Conceived by a poet who believed[1]Dreams should be dreamed and then achieved.
And he bored him a tunnel—rock and boulder,Out of a mountain’s granite shoulder,Chiseled his windows—arching wide,Glimpsing the sky and the rolling tide;Throwing his graceful spans acrossDripping ravines of fern and moss;Charming the serpent up and downTill it lazily coiled on the lofty crown,Goal of each traveller who would beThrilled with unspeakable ecstacy.
Oh climb in your chariots pink and green,Rattletrap Lizzie and limousine,Throbbing triumphantly toward the sky,(There’s never a grade but you take on high)Honking and honking, round on round,Honking again till the cliffs resound,Looping at last the Crown Point top—And there you stop!Where winds from the North, East, West and SouthTumble their clouds in the chasm’s mouth—Curtains of mist and far-off thunder—And somehow you look and look and wonderIf he who was wise to the sparrow’s fallDidn’t have something to do with it all.
Over the broad Willamette goInto the Coast Range—learn to knowWho are the Vikings—see them riseOut of the gulches into the skies;There are plummet-lines dropped through the hearts of theseAnd 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 flashesBlotching 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!Ranges, ruff-backed with their jagged trees,Crawling and sprawling down into the seas,Reaching their ragged, granite handsOut through the shifting, drifting sands—Out where the wild, white horses prance,Tossing their manes—and the cormorantsStrut with the lions and blustering seals,And the sun-god reelsWith a splash of bloodInto the great, Pacific flood!
And this is the welcome waiting you,Drivers of chariots gold and blue—You who fareUnder the heavens from everywhere—This is the crowning of your questWhen you’ve looked in the heart of the great Northwest!
[1]Reference to Samuel Lancaster, Portland, Oregon.
[1]Reference to Samuel Lancaster, Portland, Oregon.