BUILDERS OF HIGHWAYS
Up through the purple robe of night
Into 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!"
Into 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 upon
The 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 song
Tells out its gladness, there winds along
Like a sinuous serpent-twist and bend,
Following on to the river's trend,
The lordliest highway that ever ran
Through the hills of the world since the dawn of man.
Pride of the West! Sublime event!
Columbia the Magnificent!
The 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 song
Tells out its gladness, there winds along
Like a sinuous serpent-twist and bend,
Following on to the river's trend,
The lordliest highway that ever ran
Through the hills of the world since the dawn of man.
Pride of the West! Sublime event!
Columbia the Magnificent!
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