{
 "id": "walt-whitman/pioneers-o-pioneers",
 "title": "Pioneers! O Pioneers!",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Walt Whitman",
 "poet_slug": "walt-whitman",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Leaves of Grass",
 "book_slug": "leaves-of-grass",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 95,
 "container": "Birds of Passage",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1865,
  "venue": "Drum-Taps (New York, 1865)",
  "note": "Located in this edition by matching this text's lines against the 1865 Drum-Taps scan. The corpus text follows the 1891–92 arrangement, by which the poem had been revised. First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/waltwhitmansdrum00whit"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/walt-whitman_leaves-of-grass",
  "file": "birds-of-passage.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1322",
   "https://archive.org/details/leavesgrass03whitgoog"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 104,
  "n_stanzas": 26,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 87,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Come my tan-faced children,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Follow well in order, get your weapons ready,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have you your pistols? have you your sharp-edged axes?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pioneers! O pioneers!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "For we cannot tarry here,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pioneers! O pioneers!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O you youths, Western youths,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Plain I see you Western youths, see you tramping with the foremost,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pioneers! O pioneers!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Have the elder races halted?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the seas?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pioneers! O pioneers!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "All the past we leave behind,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "We debouch upon a newer mightier world, varied world,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pioneers! O pioneers!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We detachments steady throwing,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Conquering, holding, daring, venturing as we go the unknown ways,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pioneers! O pioneers!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We primeval forests felling,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "We the rivers stemming, vexing we and piercing deep the mines within,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil upheaving,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pioneers! O pioneers!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Colorado men are we,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "From the peaks gigantic, from the great sierras and the high plateaus,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the mine and from the gully, from the hunting trail we come,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pioneers! O pioneers!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "From Nebraska, from Arkansas,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the continental blood intervein’d,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All the hands of comrades clasping, all the Southern, all the Northern,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pioneers! O pioneers!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O resistless restless race!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "O beloved race in all! O my breast aches with tender love for all!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O I mourn and yet exult, I am rapt with love for all,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pioneers! O pioneers!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Raise the mighty mother mistress,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry mistress, (bend your heads all,)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Raise the fang’d and warlike mistress, stern, impassive, weapon’d mistress,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pioneers! O pioneers!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "See my children, resolute children,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "By those swarms upon our rear we must never yield or falter,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ages back in ghostly millions frowning there behind us urging,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pioneers! O pioneers!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "On and on the compact ranks,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "With accessions ever waiting, with the places of the dead quickly fill’d,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Through the battle, through defeat, moving yet and never stopping,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pioneers! O pioneers!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O to die advancing on!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Are there some of us to droop and die? has the hour come?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then upon the march we fittest die, soon and sure the gap is fill’d,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pioneers! O pioneers!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "All the pulses of the world,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Falling in they beat for us, with the Western movement beat,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Holding single or together, steady moving to the front, all for us,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pioneers! O pioneers!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Life’s involv’d and varied pageants,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "All the forms and shows, all the workmen at their work,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All the seamen and the landsmen, all the masters with their slaves,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pioneers! O pioneers!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "All the hapless silent lovers,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "All the prisoners in the prisons, all the righteous and the wicked,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All the joyous, all the sorrowing, all the living, all the dying,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pioneers! O pioneers!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I too with my soul and body,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Through these shores amid the shadows, with the apparitions pressing,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pioneers! O pioneers!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Lo, the darting bowling orb!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Lo, the brother orbs around, all the clustering suns and planets,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All the dazzling days, all the mystic nights with dreams,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pioneers! O pioneers!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "These are of us, they are with us,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "All for primal needed work, while the followers there in embryo wait behind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We to-day’s procession heading, we the route for travel clearing,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pioneers! O pioneers!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O you daughters of the West!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "O you young and elder daughters! O you mothers and you wives!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move united,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pioneers! O pioneers!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Minstrels latent on the prairies!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "(Shrouded bards of other lands, you may rest, you have done your work,)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Soon I hear you coming warbling, soon you rise and tramp amid us,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pioneers! O pioneers!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Not for delectations sweet,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Not the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful and the studious,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not the riches safe and palling, not for us the tame enjoyment,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pioneers! O pioneers!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Do the feasters gluttonous feast?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Do the corpulent sleepers sleep? have they lock’d and bolted doors?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Still be ours the diet hard, and the blanket on the ground,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pioneers! O pioneers!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Has the night descended?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Was the road of late so toilsome? did we stop discouraged nodding on our way?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet a passing hour I yield you in your tracks to pause oblivious,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pioneers! O pioneers!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Till with sound of trumpet,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Far, far off the daybreak call⁠—hark! how loud and clear I hear it wind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Swift! to the head of the army!⁠—swift! spring to your places,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pioneers! O pioneers!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}