We detachments steady throwing, Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep, Conquering, holding, daring, venturing as we go the unknown ways, Pioneers! THE CHOIR O Pioneers! THE FIRST SPOKESMAN We primeval forests felling, We the rivers stemming, vexing we and piercing the deep mines within, We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil upheaving, Pioneers! THE CHOIR O Pioneers! THE SECOND SPOKESMAN All the pulses of the world, Falling in they beat for us, with the Western movement beat, Holding single or together, steady moving to the front, all for us, Pioneers! THE CHOIR O Pioneers! THE FIRST SPOKESMAN Has the night descended? Was the road of late so toilsome? Did we stop discouraged, nodding on our way? Yet a passing hour I yield you in your tracks to pause oblivious, Pioneers! THE CHOIR O Pioneers! FREEDOM Till with sound of trumpet, Far, far off the daybreak call--hark! how loud I hear it wind, Swift! to the head of the army!--swift! spring to your places, Pioneers! THE CHOIR O Pioneers! [_At the final shout of the Choir, the western light turns suddenly bloody and the procession hurries off into murk and portent. At the same time a new light breaks over the forestage upon a sinister line of men which has come in between the thrones of the two Spokesmen._ _These men are negroes, naked, save for loin cloths and girdles, twenty-one in number, and all singers. The hands of each one are chained to the girdle of the one behind and they move up the slope toward Freedom in a slow, melancholy “V.”_ _As they move, they sing. Their song should, indeed, have scattered the echoes of the farewell acclamation of the pioneers. The strain of it is despair that takes refuge in worship. It is one of the old spirituals, “Go Down Moses.” They move, singing, up to Freedom and she comes sorrowfully down to meet them and the Chronicler rises._ _As the negroes finish their song, they kneel at Freedom’s feet and she bends over them._] FREEDOM While you suffer, I am nothing. THE CHRONICLER The trial of the race comes with the attainment of its empire. In the west the factions meet already and the issue is the slave. FREEDOM God alone knows the end Yet God understands! [_The Chronicler sits and a blare of madness comes upon the music and a new group is upon the forestage. The center of this is an old man, white bearded, with a bloody head and a halter about his neck. Other figures stand about a gibbet. The music subsides softly into “John Brown’s Body” and continues to weave variations upon this until the final moment when the chorus of Union Soldiers takes it up. In the meanwhile, this old man, John Brown, speaks._] JOHN BROWN