Selections from American poetry Part 37

(Selection)

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 friends.h.i.+p, 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 pa.s.ses, 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 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, impa.s.sive, 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!

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! 0 pioneers!

Not for delectations sweet, Not the cus.h.i.+on 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 pa.s.sing hour I yield you in your tracks to pause oblivious, Pioneers! 0 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!

O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!

O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done The s.h.i.+p has weather'd every rack; the prize we sought is won; The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring.

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up--for you the flag is flung--for you the bugle trills-- For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths--for you the sh.o.r.es a-crowding For you they call, the swaying ma.s.s, their eager faces turning.

Here, Captain! dear father!

This arm beneath your head!

It is some dream that on the deck You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still; My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will.

The s.h.i.+p is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done; From fearful trip the victor s.h.i.+p comes in with object won.

Exult, O sh.o.r.es! and ring, O bells!

But I with mournful tread Walk the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.

NOTES

ANNE DUDLEY BRADSTREET

"One wishes she were more winning: yet there is no gainsaying that she was clever; wonderfully well instructed for those days; a keen and close observer; often dexterous in her verse--catching betimes upon epithets that are very picturesque: But--the Tenth Muse is too rash."

--DONALD G. MITCh.e.l.l.

Born in England, she married at sixteen and came to Boston, where she always considered herself an exile. In 1644 her husband moved deeper into the wilderness and there "the first professional poet of New England" wrote her poems and brought up a family of eight children.

Her English publisher called her the "Tenth Muse, lately sprung up in America."

CONTEMPLATION

2. Phoebus: Apollo, the Greek sun G.o.d, hence in poetry the sun.

7. delectable giving pleasure.

13. Dight: adorned.

MICHAEL WIGGLESWORTH (1631-1705)

"He was, himself, in nearly all respects, the embodiment of what was great earnest, and sad, in Colonial New England.... In spite, however, of all offences, of all defects, there are in his poetry an irresistible sincerity, a reality, a vividness, reminding one of similar qualities in the prose of John Bunyan."

M. C. TYLER.

Born in England, he was brought to America at the age of seven. He graduated from Harvard College and then became a preacher. He later added the profession of medicine and practiced both professions.