What strong uncommon men were these, These settlers hewing to the seas! Great horny-handed men and tan; Men blown from any border land; Men desperate and red of hand, And men in love and men in debt, And men who lived but to forget, And men whose very hearts had died, Who only sought these woods to hide Their wretchedness, held in the van; Yet every man among them stood Alone, along that sounding wood, And every man somehow a man. A race of unnamed giants these, That moved like gods among the trees, So stern, so stubborn-brow'd and slow, With strength of black-maned buffalo, And each man notable and tall, A kingly and unconscious Saul, A sort of sullen Hercules. A star stood large and white awest, Then Time uprose and testified; They push'd the mailèd wood aside, They toss'd the forest like a toy, That great forgotten race of men, The boldest band that yet has been Together since the siege of Troy, And followed it ... and found their rest. What strength! what strife! what rude unrest! What shocks! what half-shaped armies met! A mighty nation moving west, With all its steely sinews set Against the living forests. Hear The shouts, the shots of pioneer! The rended forests, rolling wheels, As if some half-check'd army reels, Recoils, redoubles, comes again, Loud sounding like a hurricane. O bearded, stalwart, westmost men, So tower-like, so Gothic-built! A kingdom won without the guilt Of studied battle; that hath been Your blood's inheritance.... Your heirs Know not your tombs. The great ploughshares Cleave softly through the mellow loam Where you have made eternal home And set no sign. Your epitaphs Are writ in furrows. Beauty laughs While through the green ways wandering Beside her love, slow gathering White starry-hearted May-time blooms Above your lowly levell'd tombs; And then below the spotted sky She stops, she leans, she wonders why The ground is heaved and broken so, And why the grasses darker grow And droop and trail like wounded wing. Yea, Time, the grand old harvester, Has gather'd you from wood and plain. We call to you again, again; The rush and rumble of the car Comes back in answer. Deep and wide The wheels of progress have pass'd on; The silent pioneer is gone. His ghost is moving down the trees, And now we push the memories Of bluff, bold men who dared and died In foremost battle, quite aside.