The Pioneer

 The Pioneer

What was his name? I do not know his name.
I only know he heard God's voice, and came:
Brought all he loved across the sea,
To live and work for God and me:
Felled the ungracious oak;
With rugged toil
Dragged from the soil
The thrice-gnarled roots and stubborn rock;
With plenty filled the haggard mountain side;
And, when his work was done, without memorial died.
No blaring trumpet sounded out his fame;
He lived, he died--I do not know his name.
No form of bronze and no memorial stones
Show me the place where lie his moldering bones;
Only a cheerful city stands,
Built by his hardened hands;
Only ten thousand homes,
Where every day
The cheerful play
Of love and hope and courage comes.
These are his monuments, and these alone,--
There is no form of bronze, and no memorial stone.