O I mourn and yet exult--I am rapt with love for all,
Pioneers!
Pioneers!
Whitman
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!
7.
We primeval forests felling,
We the rivers stemming, vexing we, and piercing deep the mines within;
We the surface broad surveying, and the virgin soil upheaving,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
8.
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!
9.
From Nebraska, from Arkansas,
Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the continental blood
interveined;
All the hands of comrades clasping, all the Southern, all the Northern,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
10.
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;
11.
Raise the mighty mother mistress,
Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry mistress, (bend your
heads all,)
Raise the fanged and warlike mistress, stern, impassive, weaponed mistress,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
12.
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!
13.
On and on, the compact ranks,
With accessions ever waiting, with the places of the dead quickly filled,
Through the battle, through defeat, moving yet and never stopping,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
14.
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 filled,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
