Classic Poem

The outcroppings of granite on a lonely wood-covered height like Dodlin,
The snowy ledges on the storm-swept shoulders of Equinox,
Catch the eye of the knowing explorer. Time passes; one sees a forest of derricks;
The clicking of chisels is heard, the rhythmical thud of hammers; a puff of blue smoke rises,
Followed by a dying echo; a white horse, oblivious of the splendid outlook —
The far-away line of the gorge-scalloped range of cloud-haunted mountains,
The checkered farms in the valley — turns round and around in a beaten path;
The guy-ropes creak and strain; the pulleys slowly revolve;
The chains clasp and lift the enormous slabs of fresh-cleaved stone;
The tram is loaded and surely, not swiftly, borne on the endless cable,
Glides down the side of the mountain and delivers its load at the shed
Where a hundred men are at work, shaping, splitting, polishing
Columns and cubes and figures for buildings from Eastport to Tacoma.

Yonder, where once a river flowed, is a bed of slippery clay,
Inexhaustible, ready for human use; the local requirements filled,
With clumsy tools unimproved, yet sufficient to accomplish the purpose,
Wider calls must be met; huge sheds are built; the unburnt bricks,
Slimy and blue, are cut out by the jaws of machines,
Hundreds at once, and carefully stacked for the burning.
The smoke of the slow well-regulated fires curls from the roofs.
Then when the bricks are burnt and cooled and show a smooth and rich warm red,
They are loaded on flat cars and borne away to the city,
There to be laid one by one in the soft bed of mortar,
Tapped into perfect line with the clinking edge of the trowel
As the great building rises plumb-straight to stand, if need were, for centuries,
Or cunningly curved into a tapering chimney hundreds of feet in the air,
Whence huge volumes of pitch-black smoke borne aloft by the draft
Ever and anon will spread like a banner across the sky,
To settle down and enwrap the town in a gloomy breath-choking pall.