 | A little book of tribune verse |  |
169
THE PIONEER.
Fill up your glass, O comrade true,
With sparkling wine that cheers,
And let us drink a bumper to
The sturdy pioneers;
The honest men, the women fair,
Who, years and years ago,
Had steady hearts and heads to dare
Deeds we may never know
Nor page in history show!
With sparkling wine that cheers,
And let us drink a bumper to
The sturdy pioneers;
The honest men, the women fair,
Who, years and years ago,
Had steady hearts and heads to dare
Deeds we may never know
Nor page in history show!
They had their uses then, and now
They have their uses too,
For oh! they live to tell us how
In eighteen sixty-two
The summer was the hottest time
That ever scorched our state,
And then, with earnestness sublime,
They hasten to relate
Tales vast to contemplate;
They have their uses too,
For oh! they live to tell us how
In eighteen sixty-two
The summer was the hottest time
That ever scorched our state,
And then, with earnestness sublime,
They hasten to relate
Tales vast to contemplate;
And speak of bitter wintry woe!
Why, mercy sakes alive!
There fell a fifteen foot of snow
In eighteen sixty-five!
Three foot of water in the Platte
Was frozen ten foot thick,
And, seeming not content with that,
Each man and wife and chick
With rheumatiz took sick!
Why, mercy sakes alive!
There fell a fifteen foot of snow
In eighteen sixty-five!
Three foot of water in the Platte
Was frozen ten foot thick,
And, seeming not content with that,
Each man and wife and chick
With rheumatiz took sick!
170
And should we smile? The years gone by
With martyr lives are strewn;
We're gaily treading, you and I,
The path which they have hewn,
Hewn from the desert and the mine,
Posterity to cheer,
Let's toast them in the sparkling wine,
Drink to the mem'ries dear!
Drink to the pioneer!
With martyr lives are strewn;
We're gaily treading, you and I,
The path which they have hewn,
Hewn from the desert and the mine,
Posterity to cheer,
Let's toast them in the sparkling wine,
Drink to the mem'ries dear!
Drink to the pioneer!
January 29th, 1883.
| A little book of tribune verse | |