Has some prospect better pleased you?
Did you ever lift your eye--
Anywhere in any country--
To a fairer, bluer sky?
Ever breathe an air diviner,
Ever know a land confessed
Half so rich and full of promise
As this wonderful Southwest?
Then surely you have visited
The Islands of the Blest.
Did you ever note the splendor--
That is baffling and supreme
As the fairest, finest picture
That can fill a poet's dream--
Of a shifting, long procession
Of the white clouds, one by one,
When they reddened down the roadway
Of the far-off, setting sun?
Then you've been in Arizona
When a glorious day was done!
You have said there's something nobler
Than the cataract which falls
'Twixt Ontario and Erie
Over adamantine walls;
And the Yellowstone attraction
You concede can scarce be spanned
Even in imagination--
Yet a greater is at hand.
Then we know you've seen the Canyon
Which is justly called the Grand.
Having rich, abundant treasures,
And ideals high and pure,
We shall build our civic temple
Making its foundations sure.
Heaven sends us dauntless leaders--
Lack of them all progress mars--
Men who measure with our mountains,
Men as strong as iron bars--
Men whose purposes are lofty
As the orbits of the stars.
