| |
| 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, | 5 |
| 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, | 10 |
| 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, | 15 |
| 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 labor and the march, | |
| Pioneers! O pioneers! | 20 |
| |
| 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, | 25 |
| 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, | 30 |
| 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, | 35 |
| 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! | 40 |
| |
| 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, | 45 |
| 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, | 50 |
| 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, | 55 |
| 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! | 60 |
| |
| 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, | 65 |
| 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, | 70 |
| 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 suns and planets, | |
| All the dazzling days, all the mystic nights with dreams, | 75 |
| 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! | 80 |
| |
| 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! | 85 |
| (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, | 90 |
| 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, | 95 |
| 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! | 100 |
| |
| 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! | |
| |
