The Oregon Trail

Two hundred wagons, rolling out to Oregon,
Breaking through the gopher holes, lurching wide and free,
Crawling up the mountain pass, jolting, grumbling, rumbling on,
Two hundred wagons, rolling to the sea.
From East and South and North they flock, to muster, row on row,
A fleet of tenscore prairie ships beside Missouri’s flow.
The bullwhips crack, the oxen strain, the canvas-hooded files
Are off upon the long, long trail of sixteen hundred miles.
The women hold the guiding lines; beside the rocking steers
With goad and ready rifle walk the bearded pioneers
Through clouds of dust beneath the sun, through floods of sweeping rain
Cross the Kansas prairie land, across Nebraska’s plain.
Two hundred wagons, rolling out to Oregon,
Curved round the campfire flame at halt when day is done,
Rest awhile beneath the stars, yoke again and lumber on,
Two hundred wagons, rolling with the sun.
Among the barren buttes they wind beneath the jealous view
Of Blackfoot, Pawnee, Omaha, Arapahoe, and Sioux.
No savage threat may check their course, no river deep and wide;
They swim the Platte, they ford the Snake, they cross the Great Divide.
They march as once from India’s vales through Asia’s mountain door
With shield and spear on Europe’s plain their fathers marched before.
They march where leap the antelope and storm the buffalo
Still westward as their fathers marched ten thousand years ago.
Two hundred wagons, rolling out to Oregon,
Creeping down the dark defile below the mountain crest,
Surging through the brawling stream, lunging, plunging, forging on,
Two hundred wagons, rolling toward the West.
Now toils the dusty caravan with swinging wagon-poles
Where Walla Walla pours along, where broad Columbia rolls.
The long-haired trapper’s face grows dark and scowls the painted brave;
Where now the beaver builds his dam the wheat and rye shall wave.
The British trader shakes his head and weighs his nation’s loss,
For where those hardy settlers come the Stars and Stripes will toss.
Then block the wheels, unyoke the steers; the prize is his who dares;
The cabins rise, the fields are sown, and Oregon is theirs!
They will take, they will hold,
By the spade in the mold,
By the seed in the soil,
By the sweat and the toil,
By the plow in the loam,
By the school and the home!
Two hundred wagons, rolling out to Oregon,
Two hundred wagons, ranging free and far,
Two hundred wagons, rumbling, grumbling, rolling on,
Two hundred wagons, following a star!