9. Explain the most important structure each one of us is building. (Read again the sentences at the top of p. 207.)

Antithesis, or Contrast

In "A Builder's Lesson" the poet makes a striking use of contrast, or antithesis. By this is meant that he expresses his thought by using in pairs, words, phrases, and clauses whose meaning is opposite. For example, in the first two lines, he uses "break" and "make" the first word means the exact opposite of the second and the use of the two together emphasizes the way to get rid of a bad habit. Again, in line three, we find the contrasting' words, "gathered" and "lose." Go through the poem and make a list of all the antitheses you can find. Why is the use of contrast especially fitting in "A Builder's Lesson"?

CLASS-LIBRARY READINGS

THE MAKERS AND THE BUILDERS

1. "The Thought and the Stone," M. E. Waller, in The Joy in Work,

III-120.

2. "Lines on the Death of a Worthy Shoemaker,” E. Mott, in Vocational Reader, 170–171.

3. "The Flag Makers," F. K. Lane, ibid., 239-242.

66

4. 'Business," S. W. Foss, ibid., 242-244.

5. "Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the Children's Poet," in Makers of Our History, 227–236.

Read this poem twice. As you read it the second time, make a list of the preceding selections of which you are reminded.

They stormed the forts of Nature,

And marched with blast and drill

On her bulwark cliffs and sapping swamps,

Her strength against their skill.

Though her torrents twisted their bridges.

Like the horns of a mountain ram

And burst like a hungry tiger

Through the buttressed walls of their dam;

They threw out new spans like spiders,

And copied the beaver's art,

And broke the desert's slumber

With bloom in its rainless heart.

They tunnelled her snowy shoulders,
Or wriggled up like a snake,
And laced her with iron girders
Like a martyr lashed to a stake.

And clove her spine-like ridges
From isthmus shore to shore,
And plied their mighty dredges
As she let the landslides pour.

She was harsh as a fickle mistress,
And stern as an angered god,
Then soft as the lap of a mother,
As they conquered her great untrod.

From the circles around the Arctics
To Cancer and Capricorn,

From the yellow streams of China

To the base of the Matterhorn;

They have vanquished their untamed Mother;
Though she thunders volcanic guns,

They force her to do their bidding,

Like masterful rebel sons.

CLASS ACTIVITIES

1. Read the names of the selections on your list (see p. 210) and tell how this poem reminded you of each of them. Read again the explanation on p. 40.

2. Explain the work of civil engineers.

Mention three "forts of nature" which civil engineers have “stormed." Mention three which they have not "stormed." (Look up "stormed" in the glossary if you do not know what it means.)

3. Name the three kinds of work which are referred to in the third stanza. What sort of construction or engineering is referred to in the fourth stanza? What historic event is meant in the fifth stanza? 4. Give examples showing how civil engineers have forced nature to do their bidding.

5. Make a list of the figures of speech in this think best fits the work of civil engineers? (Be able to explain what you mean by a p. 169.)

poem.

Which do you

Tell why you think so. "figure of speech"; see

6. Does the author of this poem hold the same opinion of Nature as

Slosson? (See p. 113.) Explain.

7. Word study: bulwark, sapping, buttressed, fickle, vanquished.

2. A SONG OF PANAMA

ALFRED DAMON RUNYON

"Chuff! chuff! chuff!" An' a mountain-bluff
Is moved by the shovel's song;

"Chuff! chuff! chuff!" Oh, the grade is rough.
A-liftin' the landscape along!

We are ants upon a mountain, but we're leavin' of our dent,
An' our teeth-marks bitin' scenery they will show the way we

went;

We're liftin' half creation, an' we're changin' it around,

Just to suit our playful purpose when we're diggin' in the ground.

"Chuff! chuff! chuff!" Oh, the grade is rough,

An' the way to the sea is long;

"Chuff! chuff! chuff!" An' the engine's puff
Is tune to the shovel's song!

We're shiftin' miles like inches, and we grab a forest here
Just to switch it over yonder so's to leave an angle clear;
We're pushin' leagues o' swamps aside so we can hurry by
An' if we had to do it we would probably switch the sky!

"Chuff! chuff! chuff!" Oh, it's hard enough

When you're changin' a job gone wrong;
"Chuff! chuff! chuff!" An' there's no rebuff
To the shovel a-singin' its song!

You hear it in the mornin' an' you hear it late at night
It's our battery keepin' action with support o' dynamite;
Oh, you get it for your dinner, an' the scenery skips along
In a movin' panorama to the chargin' shovel's song!

"Chuff! chuff! chuff!" An' it grabs the scruff
Of a hill an' boosts it along;

"Chuff! chuff! chuff!" Oh, the grade is rough,
But it gives to the shovel's song!

This is a fight that's fightin', an' the battle's to the death;
There is no stoppin' here to rest or even catch your breath;
You're not a noble hero, an' you leave no gallant name
You're fightin' Nature's, army, an' it's not an easy game!

Chuff! chuff! chuff!" Oh, the grade is rough,

An' the way to the end is long,

"Chuff! chuff! chuff!" An' the engines puff

As we lift the landscape along!

CLASS ACTIVITIES

1. Who is supposed to be speaking in this poem? Explain the chief difference between the content of "A Song of Panama" and "The

Civil Engineers."

2. Which of the two poets

Hoffman or Runyon

looks at construction Which from the viewRead the lines which cause your opinion.

work from the viewpoint of the engineer?
point of the laborer?

3. Read the stanza in "The Civil Engineers" which is illustrated by

'A Song of Panama."

4. Read lines in the two poems which are much alike.

5. Point out two illustrations of the use of repetition (see p. 206, No. 2) in A Song of Panama." What effect is the poet trying to produce in each instance?

6. What is the most striking resemblance between Runyon's poem and the poems in the preceding section? What seems to be the greatest difference?

7. What do you like best in this poem - the thought, the vocabulary, the pictures, the swing, or the melody?

8. Volunteer work: Special report on the construction of the Panama Canal. (Secure information in the references below.)

ADDITIONAL READINGS. 1. "Goethals," P. MacKaye. 2. "Ode on the Completion of the Panama Canal," G. W. Dresbach, Road to Everywhere, 24-25. 3. "The Steam Shovel," E. Tietjens, in H. Monroe and A. C. Henderson's The New Poetry, 536-537. 4. "The Panama Canal,” G. W. Goethals, in National Geographic Magazine, 22: 149–211. 5. "Railroad Engineering," A. Williams, How It Is Done. 6. "The Panama Canal To-day,” J. B. Bishop, in Scribner's Magazine, 70: 33-52. 7. "Cutting a Hemisphere in Two," G. E. Walsh, in C. L. Barstow's Progress of a United People, 107–114. 8. "The Panama Canal," W. B. Parsons, ibid., 115-124.