William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. (1878–1962). Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1920.
The Civil Engineers
T
And marched with blast and drill
On her bulwark cliffs and sapping swamps,—
Her strength against their skill.
Like the horns of a mountain ram
And burst like a hungry tiger
Through the buttressed walls of their dam;
And copied the beaver’s art,
And broke the desert’s slumber
With bloom in its rainless heart.
Or wriggled up like a snake,
And laced her with iron girders
Like a martyr lashed to a stake.
From isthmus shore to shore,
And plied their mighty dredges
As she let the landslides pour,
And stern as an angered god,
Then soft as the lap of a mother,
As they conquered her great untrod.
To Cancer and Capricorn,
From the yellow streams of China
To the base of the Matterhorn;
Though she thunders volcanic guns,
They force her to do their bidding,
Like masterful rebel sons.