Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.
The Pioneers
By Charles Mackay (1814–1889)R
Free as the winds we love to roam,
Far through the prairie, far through the forest,
Over the mountains we ’ll find a home.
We cannot breathe in crowded cities,
We ’re strangers to the ways of trade;
We long to feel the grass beneath us,
And ply the hatchet and the spade.
Offer us pasture, fruit, and corn;
Needing our presence, courting our labor;—
Why should we linger like men forlorn?
We love to hear the ringing rifle,
The smiting axe, the falling tree;—
And though our life be rough and lonely,
If it be honest, what care we?
Wide elbow-room for work or play!
If cities follow, tracing our footsteps,
Ever to westward shall point our way!
Rude though our life, it suits our spirit,
And new-born States in future years
Shall own us founders of a nation,—
And bless the hardy pioneers.