Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE PIONEER, by PATRICK MACGILL


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE PIONEER, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: He was a servant boy, and he
Last Line: The tale of the early pioneer.
Subject(s): Bones; Death; Pioneers; Dead, The


HE was a servant boy, and he
Married a maid of his own degree,
Rented a plot of the mountain lands,
And faced the wild with willing hands,
Where the whortleberry and monkshood grew,
And the night-shade steeped in the poison dew.
The juniper covered the rocky ledge,
The bramble grew to the torrent's edge;
The meadow land was rough and damp,
With here a rock and there a swamp;
The pines came flocking around his door;
The cold spring oozed through the cabin floor,
But, save for his wife, companionless,
He raised his hands to the wilderness.

The pine went down before his axe,
The scanty corn grew up in his tracks,
With shovel and spade the mead was drained,
With weary labour the brook was chained,
With his simple faith, and two men's power,
A giant he wrought through sun and shower,
And of every yard he dared dispute
With the wild, it drove him back a foot,
For its ways are many, its strength is great,
And man is conquered soon or late.

The woman died in a twelvemonth's space,
And left him alone in the gloomy place;
But sorrowful, silent, yet unsubdued,
He delved and drilled and hammered and hewed,
Clearing the brambles, breaking the stones,
Till the fever set in his aching bones,
And the jeering wraith of the wild in wrath
Flung him in scorn from out its path.

Then the corn rotted, the drain fell low,
Again the bramble began to grow,
The sapling grew by the fallen log,
And he died in his hut as dies a dog,
Shivering, thirsty, afraid, alone,
Unhappy, uncared for, and unknown.
This is the story fraught with fear,
The tale of the rustic pioneer.

After him came the mine and mill,
A city was built upon the hill;
There bearded fools in the council sat,
And jabbered their views upon this and that,
But no one knew or cared to hear,
The tale of the early pioneer.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net