COME, my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready;
Have you your pistols? have you your sharp edged axes? Pioneers! O pioneers!
For we cannot tarry here,
We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,
We, the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend, Pioneers! O pioneers!
O you youths, western youths,
So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship,
Plain I see you, western youths, see you tramping with the foremost, Pioneers! O pioneers!
Have the elder races halted?
Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied, over there beyond the seas?
We take up the task eternal, and the burden, and the lesson, Pioneers! O pioneers!…
–Walt Whitman, Pioneers! O Pioneers!, 1855
If I was a different person, I’d get off on kicking around voiceless, willing-to-achieve immigrants. I’d feel more armchair powerful because I could. Then, I’d blame them for all my problems as an excuse to kick them some more.
As it is, I’m too busy trying to solve my problems and achieve with hard work and persistence. But someday, when I’m able to clean up my self-esteem…
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