Pioneers! O Pioneers!

"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 fourth stanza of this work.

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!