And now to you whose story I have vainly tried to tell,
With lisping tongue and faltering pen, wherever you may dwell,
O'ershadowed by the Southern Cross, or camping in the wild,
The fellows who the city's rush and cares have ne'er defiled.
In weary lands I've seemed to roam again as yesterday,
And pierced the shadowed silence of the fallen in the fray.
O'er coulee, camp and mountain trail, I've dreamed
with strange delight
And known again the wilderness, the hunger and the night.
You've known the luring of the East, the Himalayan Heights,
You've known the fevered Gold Coast, or the mystic
Northern Lights.
You've played the game without the gain, but love the
tie that binds,
The God above, the loneliness, ye makers of the lines.
I've spoken of the ones who pay, a grave out in the plain;
You tread the path they all have trod, and follow in their train;
From Egypt and the Upper Nile, to where the Rockies stand,
You've seen it all, you've heard the call, to civilize the land.
I bid farewell, for I have known, or seemed to for a spell,
Your faces in the wilderness, I seem to know you well;
I stretch again an eager hand to you, both far and near,
And thank you with a nation's thanks—the Civil Engineer.