Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE PIONEER PASSES, by EMIL O. TOLONEN


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE PIONEER PASSES, by                    
First Line: The summer sky was purpling overhead
Last Line: And bear the brunt of winds that blow unkindly.
Subject(s): Pioneers


The summer sky was purpling overhead
while colors of a faded sunset, hurning
atop an aging spire, embered red
at dusk, and died ...
The trail had reached its turning.
The tides of time had left old Ukki choiceless
before the journey from which none return
to tell the tale. Dusk seemed so strangely voiceless --
this twilight land, where he could not discern
the faintest blaze to guide him. Shadows, tendered
by those who passed before, now crept
to rendezvous on fields the day surrendered,
on meadows where the silence ever kept.

The pioneer was going home -- he measured
himself against the last deep wilderness,
the last lone journey he must make. -- Men treasured
the worldly things; but patient ages bless
a man with wisdom when his heart grows old.
The pioneer was going home -- his sonnet
to Labor was inscribed upon a fold
of darkling earth ...
Beneath the starry bonnet,
upon his lonely travel, he would sleep
a long, unbroken sleep ...
God kindly arbored
the night toward new horizons -- faith would keep
him to the shores where kindred spirits harbored.

They said that men had won the last frontier ...
The last frontier? Unopened realms would beckon,
new fields would ever call the pioneer
upon this earth; and those who do not reckon
the price of service to their own enhancement
would always hear and answer to the call.
The pioneer would lead the world's advancement
to farther regions in the rise and fall
of changing life-conditions. -- He, however,
must journey to the ultimate frontier;
for God had said that rest succeeds endeavor,
that night must come when day has ended here.

Discarnate shapes deployed upon the distance
from this mysterious realm of sound and sight.
But those who meet the day without assistance
rest valorously in the deepest night;
and thus his spirit, moving with the eve
from earth-horizons toward an ampler morrow,
ebbed calmly when the slowing heart-beats leave
the body cold. -- His daughter knelt in sorrow
beside his couch. And seeing her alone,
the father-spirit flamed with blinding power
once more; and from the infinite Unknown
he blazed his way to her to bear the hour: --

"A weariness has overtaken me.
I've laid my burden down; I've crossed the portage
from dawn to evening -- from sea to sea,
and I must rest awhile to ease the shortage
twixt strength and will. -- But though your flowers petal
the sod wherein I sleep, still I shall live.
I'll walk the shores when seas run fluid metal
at dawn, and climb the hills when sunsets give
a glimpse of other heavens. In the hollow
I'll gather with the winds when they sing low
the songs to summer's glory. I shall follow
the trails; and, moving on them, you will know.
Then you will know that we survive the spatial
and temporal... that though the body dies,
we live... though cooling streams congeal, and glacial
configurations gray upon our eyes . ."

As one who on an alien soil may long
to see his native land, his vision lustered
with dying dreams. Some long-forgotten song,
some ancient melody his spirit mustered
from bravely breaking dawns he once had known,
awoke within... His eyes dimmed somnolently,
"The night is coming on, and I have grown
so tired, Sylvi... Sleep will take me gently..."

And thus his vision caught the sight of lands
which every one must once behold. Yet, heedful
of her, he closed his eyes and crossed his hands
as though he were to sleep when sleep is needful --
and drew his breath; and lay, there, still and stately
in death. -- -- --
She looked, and did not comprehend.
For she had seen this stillness on him lately
and did not know that it would mark the end.
She did not know until the dawn was weaving
a shroud of ghastly gray around his hed.
Then stirring to him, only half-believing,
she knelt, and spoke, and comforted the dead.

Another day, a day as bright as any
among the countless days in future's womb,
was born to life. Its charities were many;
its virtues shimmered through the breaking gloom;
its talents rifted gold against the skies
and urged the living present to achievement:
but she who lifts in pain her wounded eyes
across the day, who seeks in her bereavement
that which was yesterday -- and is no more --
must wander through its empty hours blindly.
A barren solitude she must explore
and bear the brunt of winds that blow unkindly.





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