“Ours are the forests that treasure the riches of rain;
Ours are the secret springs and the rivulets streaming
Softly down through the manifold bloom of the plain.
“Vain were the toiling of men in the dust of the dry land,
Vain were the plowing and planting in waterless fields,
Save for the life-giving currents we send from the sky-land,
Save for the fruit our embrace with the storm-cloud yields.”
O mother mountains, Madre Sierra, I love you!
Rightly you reign o’er the vale that your bounty fills,—
Kissed by the sun, or with big, bright stars above you,—