Pioneers! O Pioneers!
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"Pioneers! O Pioneers!" is a poem by the American poet Walt Whitman. It was first published in Leaves of Grass in 1865. The motto of Carleton University - Ours the Task Eternal - is taken from the forth stanza of this work.
[edit] Full poem
Pioneers! O Pioneers!
- 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 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!
- 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 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!
- 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!