Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Jessie B. Rittenhouse, ed. (1869–1948). The Second Book of Modern Verse. 1922.

The Chant of the Colorado

MY brother, man, shapes him a plan

And builds him a house in a day,

But I have toiled through a million years

For a home to last alway.

I have flooded the sands and washed them down,

I have cut through gneiss and granite.

No toiler of earth has wrought as I,

Since God’s first breath began it.

High mountain-buttes I have chiselled, to shade

My wanderings to the sea.

With the wind’s aid, and the cloud’s aid,

Unweary and mighty and unafraid,

I have bodied eternity.

My brother, man, builds for a span:

His life is a moment’s breath.

But I have hewn for a million years,

Nor a moment dreamt of death.

By moons and stars I have measured my task—

And some from the skies have perished:

But ever I cut and flashed and foamed,

As ever my aim I cherished:

My aim to quarry the heart of earth,

Till, in the rock’s red rise,

Its age and birth, through an awful girth

Of strata, should show the wonder-worth

Of patience to all eyes.

My brother, man, builds as he can,

And beauty he adds for his joy,

But all the hues of sublimity

My pinnacled walls employ.

Slow shadows iris them all day long,

And silvery veils, soul-stilling,

The moon drops down their precipices,

Soft with a spectral thrilling.

For all immutable dreams that sway

With beauty the earth and air,

Are ever at play, by night and day,

My house of eternity to array

In visions ever fair.