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Over the broad Willamette go Into the Coast Range—learn to know Who are the Vikings—see them rise Out of the gulches into the skies; There are plummet-lines dropped through the hearts of these And 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 flashes Blotching 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 hands Out through the shifting, drifting sands— Out where the wild, white horses prance, Tossing their manes—and the cormorants Strut with the lions and blustering seals, And the sun-god reels With a splash of blood Into the great, Pacific flood!