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!