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 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!

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 an