<h3 id="The_Bridge_Builder">The Bridge Builder</h3>
<p>OF old the Winds came romping down,<br/>
Oh, wild and free were they!<br/>
They bent the prairie grasses low<br/>
And made a place to play.</p>
<p>Then, that the gods might hear their voice<br/>
On purple days of spring,<br/>
They sought the tossing, pine-clad slope<br/>
And made a place to sing.</p>
<p>Tired at last of song and play,<br/>
They found a canyon deep<br/>
And in its echoing silences<br/>
They made a place to weep.</p>
<p>Man came, a small and feeble thing,<br/>
And looked upon the plain.<br/>
“Lo, this is mine,” he said, and set<br/>
A seal of golden grain.</p>
<p>Upon the mountain slopes he gazed,<br/>
Where the great pine trees grow,<br/>
Then gashed their mighty sides and laid<br/>
Their singing branches low.</p>
<p>He clung upon the canyon’s ledge<br/>
And from its topmost ridge,<br/>
Above its vast and awful deeps,<br/>
He built himself a bridge.</p>
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<p>A bauble in the light of day,<br/>
New gilded by the sun,<br/>
It seemed like some great, golden web<br/>
By giant spider spun!</p>
<p>The homeless winds came rushing down—<br/>
Oh they were wild and free!<br/>
And angry for their stolen plain<br/>
And for their felled pine tree—</p>
<p>And angry—angry most of all<br/>
For that brave bridge of gold!<br/>
With deep-mouthed shout they hurtled down<br/>
To tear it from its hold—</p>
<p>The girders shrieked, the cables strained<br/>
And shuddered at the roar—<br/>
Yet, when the winds had passed, the bridge<br/>
Held firmly as before!</p>
<p>Still fairy-like and frail it shone<br/>
Against the sunset’s glow—<br/>
But one, the builder of the bridge,<br/>
Lay silent, far below!</p>
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