The Surveyors
To praise surveyors I was never timid,
I scan the verses of the Iliad,
And find Athena at a bound’ry limit
"Which men in olden times established had."
I quote from Zechariah 2 with pleasure:
"Behold that man with ropes, he stretches them;
I lifted up mine eyes and saw him measure
The length and breadth of old Jerusalem."
He was a learned and hieroglyphic writer
Who parceled out the flood plains of the Nile.
He measured Rome’s transcontinental iter,
His ´mille± ´passus± turned into the mile.
He rode with Coronado’s hapless dreamers,
To take the latitude at their command.
He ran a line to distant, orange streamers,
And sectionized a young and boundless land.
They are the vanguard of civilization,
And as professionals they stand apart.
I have no modest, skittish hesitation
To praise surveyors and their ancient art.