Boulder Dam

I

Imagine it in terms of water first:

In Arizona, California there will be no thirst.

The sterile desert suddenly made green,

The miles of lettuce where grass was never seen,

Oranges glow on the dark trees and dates explode

And you can't count the flowers from the road.

And all the farms are safe that feared the flood.

It flows through desert states like living blood:

In Arizona, California there will be no thirst.

Dream of it then in terms of power and light,

Hundreds of cities bloom with it at night.

Mountains away the captured river lives

And people read upon its strength, that gives

Warmth to the isolated farm and deep in earth

The black mines glow with its tremendous birth.

The hills are peopled with tall silver towers

That hold vast energy until it flowers:

Hundreds of cities bloom with it at night.

O then remember the swift evil river,

Now it has been transformed to a sweet giver:

"Too thin to plough, too thick to drink" they said,

A muddy devil farmers had learned to dread

When every spring their crops were washed away

And in the summer earth too dry for hay.

Now it has been enchanted to a crystal lake,

Pent up in rocky walls no storm can break:

Now it is changed into a powerful giver.

Only when you have dreamed all that a dam can mean

Of light in darkness, of safety and of emerald green

Then climb the rocky hills and take a look and see:

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Not in the cities, not among fabricated towers,

Not on the super-highways has the land been matched.

Beside the mountains man's invention cowers.

And in a country various and wild and beautiful

How cheap the Ford car and the lighted movie look.

We have been daily aware of a failure to live,

Monotonous poverty of spirit and the lack of love.

But solitary here among hills bare and desert-red

A violent precipice, a dizzy white curve falls

Hundreds of feet through rock to the deep river-bed,

A beauty sheer and clean and without error,

It stands with the created sapphire lake behind it,

It stands, a work of man as noble as the hills

And it is faith as well as water that it spills.

Not built on terror like the empty pyramid,

Not built to conquer but illuminate a world:

It is the human answer to a human need,

Power in absolute control, freed as a gift,

A pure creative act, God when the world was born,

It proves that we have built for life and built for love

And when we all are dead, this dam will stand and give.