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THE EARTH'S ENTAIL
No matter how we cultivate the land,
Taming the forest and the prairie free;
No matter how we irrigate the sand,
Making the desert blossom at command,
We must always leave the borders of the sea;
The immeasureable reaches
Of the windy wave-wet beaches,
The million-mile-long margin of the sea.
No matter how the engineers may toil,
Nature's barriers and bulwarks to defy;
No matter how we excavate and spoil,
De-forest and denude and waste the soil,
We must always leave the mountains looming high;
No human effort changes,
The horizon-rolling ranges
Where the high hills heave and shoulder to the sky.
When a child may wander safely, east or west,
When the peaceful nations gossip and agree.
When our homes are set in gardens all at rest,
And happy lives are long in work loved best,
We can leave our labor and go free;
Free to go and stand alone in,
Free for each to find his own in.
In the everlasting mountains and the sea.
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