Different that other roundups you may be familiar with.
Prototype Only.
Not for internal consumption.
May cause itching, tinnitus, distended adjective and conniptions.
This week...
“Pioneers! O Pioneers!”
By Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
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!
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!
Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep,
Conquering, holding, daring, venturing as we go the unknown ways,Pioneers! O pioneers!
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!
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!
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 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!
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!
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 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 brother orbs around, all the clustering suns and planets,
All the dazzling days, all the mystic nights with dreams,Pioneers! O pioneers!
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 young and elder daughters! O you mothers and you wives!
Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move united,Pioneers! O pioneers!
(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 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 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!
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!
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,
UPDATE: Welcome Crooks & Liars personages. There's beer in the fridge and I dug a fresh latrine out back.
8 comments:
Fatigue cripples US army in Iraq
For all you do, Drifty...
This, (metaphoric), Bud's for you!
And please don't hold it against me if you're a Miller or a Guinness fan or whatever. Suffice to say that were there not over 1,000 miles of America between us I'd've boughten you one personally. That piece of yours, above, took some doing! And was that good!
My only problem is, I hate Walt Whitman's poetry. Take a perusal of Rimbaud, if you ever wish to execute such a Heraclean effort as this again. Mindbendingly good stuff. Though I think your very own SMCD is 21st Century stream-of-consciousness poetry at it's finest. No need to mix in that 19th C. stuff... Unless of course you're up on your Byron?
Dumbayah, Dumbayah, Burning blaq
In the Desert of Iraq...
FWIW...
Rimbaud rocks, or rocked i guess
Damn! nothing I did these past couple of days was worthy? damn!
L.S./M.F.T,
If I do it again, I'll definitely consider Rimbaud. Probably Poe first, though.
Hubris,
Thanks to the magic of re-editing...look again :-)
Drifty,
Thanks... ;)
How about a Poe / Rimbaud deathmatch!!!!!!
Poe!!!! Poe!!!! Hey Let's Go!!! My Rhymes Are Fast - Yo' Rhymes Are S-L-O-W!!!
Damn, Can't believe I'm just now seeing this. Yippee kiyay, motherfucker, and thankee pardner!
(Yippee kiyay, motherfucker is a quote from the Unquotable Will Rogers, former Mayor of Beverly Hills)
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