Come my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get
your weapons ready,
Have you your pistols? have you your
sharp-edged axes?
Pioneers! O pioneers!
For we
cannot tarry here,
We must march my darlings, we must
bear the brunt of danger
We the youthful sinewy races,
all the rest on us depend,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
O
you youths, Western youths,
So impatient, full of action,
full of manly pride and friendship,
Plain I see you
Western youths, see you tramping with the foremost,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Have the elder races halted?
Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there
beyond the seas?
We take up the task eternal, and the
burden and the lesson,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
All
the past we leave behind,
We debouch upon a newer
mightier world, varied world,
Fresh and strong the world
we seize, world of labour and the march,
Pioneers! O
pioneers!
We detachments steady throwing,
Down the
edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep,
Conquering, holding, daring, venturing as we go the unknown
ways,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
We primeval forests
felling,
We the rivers stemming, vexing we and piercing
deep the mines within,
We the surface broad surveying, we
the virgin soil upheaving,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Colorado men are we,
From the peaks gigantic, from the
great sierras and the high plateaus,
From the mine and
from the gully, from the hunting trail we come,
Pioneers!
O pioneers!
From Nebraska, from Arkansas,
Central
inland race are we, from Missouri, with the continental
blood intervein'd,
All the hands of comrades clasping,
all the Southern, all the Northern,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
O resistless restless race!
O beloved race in all! O
my breast aches with tender love for all!
O I mourn and
yet exult, I am rapt with love for all,
Pioneers! O
pioneers!
Raise the mighty mother mistress,
Waving
high the delicate mistress, over all the starry mistress
(bend your heads all),
Raise the fang'd and warlike
mistress, stern, impassive, weapon'd mistress,
Pioneers!
O pioneers!
See my children, resolute children,
By
those swarms upon our rear we must never yield or falter,
Ages back in ghostly millions frowning there behind us
urging,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
On and on the
compact ranks,
With accessions ever waiting, with the
places of the dead quickly fill'd,
Through the battle,
through defeat, moving yet and never stopping,
Pioneers!
O pioneers!
O to die advancing on!
Are there some
of us to droop and die? has the hour come?
Then upon the
march we fittest die, soon and sure the gap is fill'd,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
All the pulses of the world,
Falling in they beat for us, with the Western movement beat,
Holding single or together, steady moving to the front, all
for us,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Life's involv'd and
varied pageants,
All the forms and shows, all the workmen
at their work,
All the seamen and the landsmen, all the
masters with their slaves,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
All the hapless silent lovers,
All the prisoners in the
prisons, all the righteous and the wicked,
All the
joyous, all the sorrowing, all the living, all the dying,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
I too with my soul and body,
We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way,
Through these shores amid the shadows, with the apparitions
pressing,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Lo, the darting
bowling orb!
Lo, the brother orbs around, all the
clustering sun and planets,
All the dazzling days, all
the mystic nights with dreams,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
These are of us, they are with us,
All for primal
needed work, while the followers there in embryo wait
behind,
We to-day's procession heading, we the route for
travel clearing,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
O you
daughters of the West!
O you young and elder daughters! O
you mothers and you wives!
Never must you be divided, in
our ranks you move united,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Minstrels latent on the prairies!
(Shrouded bards of
other lands, you may rest, you have done your work)
Soon
I hear you coming warbling, soon you rise and tramp amid us,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Not for delectations sweet,
Not the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful and the
studious
Not the riches safe and palling, not for us the
tame enjoyment,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Do the
feasters gluttonous feast?
Do the corpulent sleepers
sleep? have they lock'd and bolted doors?
Still be ours
the diet hard, and the blanket on the ground,
Pioneers! O
pioneers!
Has the night descended?
Was the road of
late so toilsome? did we stop discouraged nodding on our
way?
Yet a passing hour I yield you in your tracks to
pause oblivious,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Till with
sound of trumpet,
Far, far off the daybreak call--hark!
how loud and clear I hear it wind,
Swift! to the head of
the army!--swift! spring to your places,
Pioneers! O
pioneers! |
