The Bridge Builder

OF old the Winds came romping down,

Oh, wild and free were they!

They bent the prairie grasses low

And made a place to play.

Then, that the gods might hear their voice

On purple days of spring,

They sought the tossing, pine-clad slope

And made a place to sing.

Tired at last of song and play,

They found a canyon deep

And in its echoing silences

They made a place to weep.

Man came, a small and feeble thing,

And looked upon the plain.

“Lo, this is mine,” he said, and set

A seal of golden grain.

Upon the mountain slopes he gazed,

Where the great pine trees grow,

Then gashed their mighty sides and laid

Their singing branches low.

He clung upon the canyon's ledge

And from its topmost ridge,

Above its vast and awful deeps,

He built himself a bridge.

A bauble in the light of day,

New gilded by the sun,

It seemed like some great, golden web

By giant spider spun!

The homeless winds came rushing down —

Oh they were wild and free!

And angry for their stolen plain

And for their felled pine tree —

And angry — angry most of all

For that brave bridge of gold!

With deep-mouthed shout they hurtled down

To tear it from its hold —

The girders shrieked, the cables strained

And shuddered at the roar —

Yet, when the winds had passed, the bridge

Held firmly as before!

Still fairy-like and frail it shone

Against the sunset's glow —

But one, the builder of the bridge,

Lay silent, far below!