BUILDERS OF HIGHWAYS
MASTERFUL builders! You who've planned
Your limitless highways through our land,
Splendid in vision—well have you wrought,
Leaving your trails where trails were not;
Weavers-weaving gigantically
Into 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 through
Into 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!
Your limitless highways through our land,
Splendid in vision—well have you wrought,
Leaving your trails where trails were not;
Weavers-weaving gigantically
Into 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 through
Into 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, unconfounded
With problems the grim old earth propounded;
With problems the grim old earth propounded;
[10]
