Page:The poems of Richard Watson Gilder, Gilder, 1908.djvu/111

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THE BUILDING OF THE CHIMNEY
83

The stout hearth-rock.
Then the lines they upswell
Like a huge church-bell,
Or a bellying sail
In a stiff south gale
When the ship rolls well,
With a blue sky above her.


IV

My chimney—come view it,
And I'll tell you, John Burroughs,
What is built all through it:
First the derrick's shrill creak,
That perturbed the still air
With a cry of despair.
The lone traveler who past
At the fall of the night
If he saw not its mast
Stood still with affright
At a sudden strange sound—
Hark! a woman's wild shriek?
Or the baying of a hound?


Then the stone-hammer's clink
And the drill's sharp tinkle,
And bird-songs that sprinkle
Their notes through the wood
(With pine odors scented),
On the swift way to drink
At the spring cold and good
That bubbles 'neath the stone
Where the red chieftain tented
In the days that are gone.