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 fore- mostPioneers! 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 labor 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!
[ begin page 184 ]ppp.01663.190.jpgColorado 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!
[ begin page 185 ]ppp.01663.191.jpgLife'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 suns 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!
[ begin page 186 ]ppp.01663.192.jpgHas 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!