Westward Ho!
by Joaquin Miller (1837-1913) |
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What strength! what strife! what rude unrest!
What
shocks! what half-shaped armies met!
A mighty nation
moving west,
With all its steely sinews set
Against
the living forests. Hear
The shouts, the shots of
pioneer,
The rended forests, rolling wheels,
As if
some half-checked army reels,
Recoils, redoubles, comes
again,
Loud-sounding like a hurricane.
O bearded,
stalwart, westmost men,
So tower-like, so Gothic built!
A kingdom won without the guilt
Of studied battle, that
hath been
Your blood's inheritance.... Your heirs
Know
not your tombs: the great plough shares
Cleave softly
through the mellow loam
Where you have made eternal home,
And set no sign. Your epitaphs
Are writ in furrows.
Beauty laughs
While through the green ways wandering
Beside her love, slow gathering
White, starry-hearted
May-time blooms
Above your lowly levelled tombs;
And
then below the spotted sky
She stops, she leans, she
wonders why
The ground is heaved and broken so,
And
why the grasses darker grow
And droop and trail like
wounded wing.
Yea, Time, the grand old harvester,
Has gathered you from wood and plain.
We call to you
again, again;
The rush and rumble of the car
Comes
back in answer. Deep and wide
The wheels of progress have
passed on;
The silent pioneer is gone.
His ghost is
moving down the trees,
And now we push the memories
Of
bluff, bold men who dared and died
In foremost battle,
quite aside. |
By Joaquin Miller (1837-1913)
Listed December 7, 2013 |
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