Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A PIONEER WOMAN, by IRENE WELCH GRISSOM


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A PIONEER WOMAN, by                    
First Line: A statue stands in a city block
Last Line: "to lie in an unmarked grave."
Subject(s): Frontier & Pioneer Life; Statues; Heroines


A statue stands in a city block --
It is called "The Pioneer" --
Of a rugged man with an old flintlock,
And a cap from the skin of a deer.
His eyes look out to the misty sweep
Of solitudes, vast and grand;
He sees great plains and forests deep,
A wide ocean's shifting sand.
His gaze is bold and erect his form,
Plain-molded his features and strong,
A man to breast the raging storm,
Well worthy of honor and song.
Then -- musing long -- I seem to see
The firm lips move, and live!
I hear these words come full and free:
"I have a message to give.

"A statue should stand here by my side,
A woman staunch and brave;
The wife who bore me children, and died,
To lie in an unmarked grave.

"She toiled with willing and faithful hands
In cabin, in forest, and field,
And helped to wrest from the savage lands
A home, that must be our shield
From fierce things prowling when night shut down,
From storms that swept black and wild.
Her face was free from a sullen frown,
For she cherished each wee new child
As a soul from God, sent here on earth
To have a share in the toil
Of giving an empire honored birth.
She dreamed that the fertile soil
Would teem with homes, and the millions dwell
Where only wild creatures ran.
The woman gives, as the ages tell,
In an equal share with man.

"Then place my mate close by my side,
That woman staunch and brave;
The wife who bore me children, and died,
To lie in an unmarked grave."





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