THE OLD PIONEER
by: Theodore O'Hara (1820-1867)
 dirge for
the brave old pioneer!
- Knight-errant of the wood!
- Calmly beneath the green sod here
- He rests from field and flood
- The war-whoop and the panther's screams
- No more his soul shall rouse,
- For well the aged hunter dreams
- Beside his good old spouse.
-
- A dirge for the brave old pioneer!
- Hushed now his rifle's peal;
- The dews of many a vanish'd year
- Are on his rusted steel;
- His horn and pouch lie moldering
- Upon the cabin-door;
- The elk rests by the salted spring,
- Nor flees the fierce wild boar.
-
- A dirge for the brave old pioneer!
- Old Druid of the West!
- His offering was the fleet wild deer,
- His shrine the mountain's crest.
- Within his wildwood temple's space
- An empire's towers nod,
- Where erst, alone of all his race,
- He knelt to Nature's God.
-
- A dirge for the brave old pioneer!
- Columbus of the land!
- Who guided freedom's proud career
- Beyond the conquer'd strand;
- And gave her pilgrim sons a home
- No monarch's step profanes,
- Free as the chainless winds that roam
- Upon its boundless plains.
-
- A dirge for the brave old pioneer!
- The muffled drum resound!
- A Warrior is slumb'ring here
- Beneath his battle-ground.
- For not alone with beast of prey
- The bloody strife he waged,
- Foremost where'er the deadly fray
- Of savage combat raged.
-
- A dirge for the brave old pioneer!
- A dirge for his old spouse!
- For her who blest his forest cheer,
- And kept his birchen house,
- Now soundly by her chieftain may
- The brave old dame sleep on,
- The red man's step is far away,
- The wolf's dread howl is gone.
-
- A dirge for the brave old pioneer!
- His pilgrimage is done;
- He hunts no more the grizzly bear
- About the setting sun.
- Weary at last of chase and life,
- He laid him here to rest,
- Nor recks he now what sport or strife
- Would tempt him further west.
-
- A dirge for the brave old pioneer!
- The patriarch of his tribe!
- He sleeps--no pompous pile marks where,
- No lines his deeds describe.
- They raised no stone about him here,
- Nor carved his deathless name--
- An empire is his sepulchre,
- His epitaph is Fame.
|
"The Old Pioneer" is reprinted
from O'Hara and His Elegies. George W. Ranck. Baltimore:
Turnbull Brothers, 1875. |
MORE
POEMS BY THEODORE OHARA |
|
