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Oh would you know the meaning of that lazy yellow haze, Why the sun’s a scarlet pinwheel in the late September days, Why the thirsty earth’s a-drowsing ’neath a lowering panoply From ’Frisco to Seattle—from the Rockies to the sea? For the skirmish that they’re having up the Clear Creek canyon there Is but one of all the flare-ups that are burning everywhere. And you’ll know them—oh, you’ll know them when a decade’s come and gone, And the lifeless bark has fallen from those trunks now pale and wan, And their ghostly, gray battalions in their long unbroken lines, Stalk the ridges, rising, falling—ghosts that once were firs and pines; You will know them—you will know them when a score of years has run, Faintly limned in mist, or gleaming—silver lances in the sun.

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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!