"The Cities of the Pioneers"

"The Cities of the Pioneers"

Lo, thro’ the gray-green shadows of the past,

       We of today behold the shape austere

That builded you from the forests vast—

       The compelling spirit of the pioneer.

We see you growing slowly, ‘mongst the trees;

       The blue smoke rising from your early fires

Drifts up the years and shames us from our ease,

       Yea, thrills us with our fathers’ old desires;

Those great desires that lit their lonely quest

       Thro’ mountain fastness and thro’ burning plain,

By perilous trails that led them ever west—

       Those men of mighty courage to attain;

Men of unlimited endurance—yea,

       With mates that equaled them, aspiring, brave,

Those splendid mothers of us here today—

       Building an empire by this sapphire wave.

An empire ruled by Freedom; not by kings;

       Of high endeavor and ideals clear;

Where each might know the joy that labor brings—

       This was the passion of the pioneer!

They cleared with stress—that we with ease might till;

       And visioned, while they planned the first rude wall,

The cities that should quicken sea and hill,

       And by their splendor all the world enthrall.

So did they plan; so did they delve and hew;

       So did they joy and suffer; sink and fail;

Rise and take heart and struggle on anew—

       So that the thing they strove for should prevail;

Yea, wrought for it with lofty stubbornness;

       Tore down the forests; broke the deserts wide;

Dared beast and savage; won the wilderness—

       For this they wrought; for this sublimely died.

Keep faith with them, O cities of today!—

       With their immortal passion and their sure

High trust. No force may your advancement stay

       While their ideals and their work endure.

Climb on as surely and as patiently;

       Let each mistake be but a stepping stone

By which to mount to glorious Liberty—

       Who dwells upon the heights, God-kissed and lone.

Build on, climb on; your place is in the sun;

       Upon the hilltops; not on lowly sod;

But where white mountains when the day is done

       Pearled on the skies, flame out the way to God.

"The Cities of the Pioneers" printed in an unidentified publication with a correction written by Ella Higginson, clipping courtesy of the Ella Higginson Papers, Center for Pacific Northwest Studies, Heritage Resources, Western Washington University, Bellingham WA.




Here, a strikingly similar poem "Seattle" is printed in an illustrated history of Washington urbanization titled Seattle and Environs: 1852-1924 (vol. 1, C.H. Hanford, 1924). The poem is identical to "The Cities of the Pioneers" save for the first stanza and minor vocabulary alterations.

"Seattle" as it appears in volume one of C.H. Hanford's Seattle and Environs: 1852-1924 (1924).