Pioneers! O Pioneers!
That damn Levi’s commercial really got this stuck in my head, with that rapid snare, and the 1930′s sounding actor. Kind of funny how I really want to go buy a pair of Levi’s now.
Pioneers! O Pioneers! Walt Whitman
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!
Brad • 2 years ago
This is a fantastic poem! It’s what was once good about America. It reminds me of the doctors attempt to find the heart of the American dream. Part of me feels he was the last real litterary pioneer.
Mike • 2 years ago
America overtakes the mantle of Europe, and I think he does a great job of describing this call to greatness.
You say the last real literary pioneer, and I say I hope not, though he certainly is America through and through.
larry • 2 years ago
I love these commercials. and i believe that 1930′s sounding actor is whitman himself. at least it is him on the other “Go Forth” commercial where he reads his poem “america”. whats funny about this one is that that is not at all how i read the poem.
the visuals of these commercials have a certain flair that gets me. both the images and models are quite captivating in some way. the commercials have this ambiguity and mysteriousness that makes me want to know what all of it means. like i need to know more. i need a context to put it all in. continuity. i can’t quite explain it. and maybe that’s the point. its like a brief flash of a hazy memory or a dream i can’t quite recall all of.
I’m something of a Levi man myself, but this commercial made me love them more. great ad campaign. A’s all around.
Mike • 2 years ago
And this is what got me thinking about this poem to begin with. There is a certain ideal created within the world of the campaign, perhaps an ideal that exists in our national psyche; what that ideal is, I cannot pin down, but it drives me to do something; it drives me to live up to it; it drives me to buy land in Montana and farm the shit out of it…in a pair of Levi’s.
Scott • 2 years ago
I wholly concur with the both of you. That commercial is mesmerizing. Not only does it make me want to shroud myself in Levis denim, I never want to purchase a different brand of jeans again. Oddly enough, it also makes me want to free-ball in a pair of tight jeans during the summer, wearing the same pair day in, day out, as I rush down to the stream to catch trout.
larry • 2 years ago
What the commercial says is “America=Consumerism” it idealizes the statement: be American, buy stuff. but its so damn captivating!
btw, since you are both fans of the classic rock: I have recently discovered Terry Reid who is an unsung genius in the annals of classic British rock. Have you heard of him?
Mike • 2 years ago
No, but the name sure sounds like I should.
Jared • 2 years ago
The commercial actually scared me the first time I saw it. It made me think of despair and rampant drug use. The commercial itself abuses Whitman’s work by cutting it up and applying it to an idea to which Whitman and this poem is utterly opposed.
But it is catchy and intriguing, a well accomplished commercial that obviously achieves what it intended.
On the poem, it was written during the Civil War and is about Manifest Destiny. The values underlying throughout are hard work, togetherness, and toughness. Whitman opposed the young nation fighting itself because it put a dent in the progress of America (although it was arguably the most progressive moment in our history). But to his defense, he was routing for the victors.
It is not about the youth, but about America as a new nation and notion. This is a great poem, aptly capturing what was once inspiring about our beginnings. We still inspire the world, but our youth has become so distracted, and our elders are no longer old world Europe, but the corrupted and greedy embodied by the commercial.
Jared • 2 years ago
Whitman was the last great American writer, in my humble opinion. But there will be others, the crew of this very weblog.
Albert • 2 years ago
Who the fuck is walt whitman?
yo • 2 years ago
http://FunnyOrDie.com/m/3qez
Scott • 2 years ago
NICE. Dan-tey’s in-ferno…