'Twas only the land when we saw it,
Unfettered, unharnessed and free,
Awaiting the will of the Master,
Who the future alone could see.
Long before ere the cold Egyptian
Had fashioned the Sphinx in the East,
Growing old ere the death of Adam,
And the flood on the Earth had ceased.
Which survived through Jehovah's vengeance,
When the glaciers crashed and roared.
The chosen of earth in their dwelling
High over the mountain soared.
It welcomed the dove with an olive,
The herald of peace in the land,
And succored the few as a parent,
God's few from a dissolute band.
Knowing nought of the fall of kingdoms
And palaces razed to the dust,
But awaiting through endless ages
The future with infinite trust.
Well knowing afar in the future
Were men who its beauty should see;
The men who would honor its waiting,
The men who as brothers would be.
And knew when the Pole was a comrade,
Instead of a luring den
That guarded its mighty secret
Away from the eyes of men;
Which beckoned the brave when they sought it,
Alluring them on to their doom;
To mock them, their quest unaccomplished,
Deserting them far in the gloom.
But welcomed the few when it saw us,
And glad that its waiting had passed.
By yielding itself to our moulding;
The first of the lands and the last.
And broke, with the song of its freedom,
The silence that long held it dumb:
"I've waited and waited and waited!
The men I awaited have come!"
It told us of those who before us
Had sought it, abusing its trust.
But knowing the Maker's decision,
Had levelled them, dust to the dust.
And knew through the ages of dreaming,
The day we its silence should end.
Give us, as a bride to her husband,
Her honor to love and defend.
It knew we would shatter its secret,
Forever its beauty would blight;
But knew that the promise was given,
"At evening it shall be light."
And after the ages of waiting,
Surrendered itself to our hands
To fall as a child in the making,
To rise as a king in the lands.
Accepting the trust that it gave us,
And doing our best to fulfill
The plans that were laid in Creation,
Obeying the Master's will.
We gave it the child of its fancy,
Instructions we took at its hand.
The line we surveyed in location,
The track that we built in the land.
Some say that the end is approaching,
The desert shall bloom as the rose;
And back it with sundry quotations,
Selected from Biblical prose.
So we further Creation's purpose,
The eve of Eternity's dawn
When the Master shall say "It is finished,"
And Gabriel blows his horn.