# Oregon Historical Quarterly/Volume 1/The Camp Fires of the Pioneers

THE CAMP FIRES OF THE PIONEERS.
VINCERE EST VIVERE!
By Sam L. Simpson.
[Reprinted from Transactions of Pioneer Association.]
    It is the mountains ! grand and calm
       As God upon his awful throne ;
    They build you strength and breathe you balm,
       For all their templed might of stone
    Is our eternal sculptured psalm !
And now your western course is led
Where grassy pampas spread and spread
    The pastures of the buffalo ;
       And like the sudden lash of foam
       When tropic tempest smite the sea
    And masts are stript to ward the blow
A ragged whirl of dust described
Upon the prairie's sloping side
       Portends a storm as swift and free,
       And lo, the herds they come ! they come !
A sweeping thunder cloud of life
    Loud as Niagara, and grand
    As they who rode with plume and brand
On Waterloo's red slope of strife ; Wild as the rush of tidal waves, That roar among the crags and caves,
    The trampling besom hurls along
A black and bounding, fiery mass
That withers, as with flame, the grass
    O! terrible ten thousand strong!
Meanwhile, the dusty teams are stopt,
The wagon tongues are deftly dropt,
And drivers by their oxen stand
And soothe them with soft speech and hand.
    And yet, with horns tossed free, and eyes
       Ablaze with purple depths of ire,
       A thousand servile years expire
    And flashes of old nature rise,
As if a sudden spirit woke
That would not brook the chain and yoke,
And then, the stormy pageant past,
They bow their callous necks at last,
And with a heavy stride and slow,
The dreams of liberty forego.
Alas! it is a land of shades.
    And mystic visions, swift alarms;
The fretted spirit flames and fades
    With clanging calls to prayers or arms.
Hangs like a jewel rich with fire
In the deep west of your desire.
And o'er the wide plateau is rolled
A surge of crinkled sunset gold,
    Bordered with shadows gray and dun.
A horseman with loose, waving hair,
Black as the blackest of despair,
    Wheels into sight and gives you heed,
    And on its haunches reins his steed,
    All quivering like a river reed, ​And sits him like a statue there,
Transfigured in the sunset sea
A bronze, bare sphynx of mystery!
A moment thus, in wonder lost,
His eagle plumes all backward tossed,
Then wheels again, as swift as wind,
The wild hair floating free behind.
And sunset's crinkled surges pour
Along an empty waste once more!
But you, since that fantastic shade
Across ydur desert path has played,
Distrust the very ground you tread,
And shiver with a nameless dread
Till stars drop crimson, and the sky
Is wan with heartless treachery.
For many days a form of white
Has flashed and faded in your sight
In fleeting glimpses, as of wings,
Our God's bright palm in beckonings.
It is a secret nursed of each
You dare not give the thought in speech,
So wierdly solemn is the sign
    As if, upon the western stairs,
    The angels of a thousand prayers
Were come with sacred bread and wine.
Again, the still, enchanted hour
Of sunset burns in crimson flower,
And purple-hearted shadows sleep
Like clustered pansies, warm and deep,
    Eastward of wreathen crag and wall.
The road that wound and wound all day
In many a dark and devious way
At last with one swift curve ascends
A rolling plain that breaks and bends
    Westward, till rosy curtains fall
    O'er mountains massed and magical.
Resplendent as a pearly tent
Upon the fir-fringed battlement-
Serene in sunset gold and rose,
A pyramid of splendor glows,
So vast and calm and bright your dream
Is dust and ashes in its gleam.
A maiden speaks "He led us far
It is the golden western star!"
And then a youth "Our goal is won
'Tis the pavilion of the sun."
A gray sage, then, in undertone
"It must be Hood, so grand and lone
The shining citadel and throne
Of Terminus, that Roman god
Who marked the line that legions trod,
And set the limits of the world
Where Caesar's battle flags were furled!
Oh, for the days of dark-eyed prophetess
Who sang in Syrian wilderness
    The gilded chariots' overthrow, ​To lead us for the cymbaled song .
To him, the beautiful and strong,
    Who dashed the brimming cup of woe
And was our cloud and flame so long!"
Forward! the crested mountains kneel
To patient toils of fire and steel
A way is hewn and you emerge
Upon the Cascades' battled verge;
    And far beneath you and away
       To ocean's shining fringe of foam
    And summer vail of floating spray,
Behold the land of your emprise,
Serene as tender twilight skies
    When day is swooning into gloam!
It is the morning twilight now
That wraps the valley's misted brow;
The bourgeoning and blooming dawn
The reveille of Oregon.
How brightly on your vision, first
The pictured vales and woodlands burst,
The lakelets set like twinkling gems
Along the prairies' pleated hems,
    The silver crooks and rippled sweeps
       Of happy rivers here and there,
    And many a waterfall that leaps
       In rainbow garlands through the air,
    The skirted maples and the groves
    Of oak the mild home-spirit loves-
    Enameled plains and crenelled hills
    And tangled skeins of brooks and rills,
Imperial forests of the fir,
All redolent of musk and myrrh,
That fling and furl their banners old,
And still their gloomy secret hold
    As Time his cloudy censer fills.
Where the foothills are wedded to the meadow
    In the dimples that dally and pass
And the oak swings an indolent shadow
    On the daisies that dial the grass.
In the crescents of rivers; in hollows
    Red-lipped in the strawberry time,
And the slope where the forests half follows,
    A brooklet's melodious rhyme,
On the sun-rippled knolls, and the prairies,
    Beloved of the wandering kine
In the skirts of the woodland the fairies
    Embroidered with rose and with vine
There's a tent, and a smoke that is curling
    Above in the beautiful dome,
Like a guardian spirit unfurling
    Soft wings o'er the temple of home.
​And the ax of the woodman is ringing
    All day in sylvestrian halls,
Where the chipmunk is playfully springing
    And the blue-jay discordantly calls;
And the red chips are fitfully flying
    On the asters that sprinkle the moss;
Where the beauty of summer is dying,
    And the sun lances glimmer across;
There's a bird that is spectrally knocking,
    On a pine that is withered and bare,
For the fir-top is trembling and rocking,
    In the blue of the clear upper air
There's a crackling of fiber the crashing
    Of a century crushed at a blow,
And the fir-trees are wringing and lashing
    Their hands in a frenzy of woe!
A pheasant whirs up from the thicket
    In the hush that comes after the fall,
And the squirrel retires to his wicket,
    And the bluebird renounces his call;
And the panther lies crouched by the bowlder
    In the gloom of the canyon anear,
And the brown bear looks over his shoulder,
    And the buck blows a signal of fear;
But there's never a pause in your duty,
    And the echoing ax is not still
As you waste with the green temples of beauty
    For the puncheon and rafter and sill
That are wrought in a cabin so lowly
    The trees will clasp hands over head,
But the heart calls it home, and the holy
    Love-lights on its hearthstone are shed.
It is staunch and rough-hewn, and the ceiling
    Of the fragrant red cedar is made,
With an edging of silver revealing
    A picture of sunlight and shade.
And the Word has its place, not a trifle
    Obscured in a pageant of books,
And above the broad mantle your rifle
    Is hung on accessible hooks.
Oh, the freshness of hope and of fancy
    That illumines the home and the heart,
With the grace of a bright necromancy
    That excels the adorning of art!
And you rise and look forth and the glory
    Of Hood is before you again,
And the sun weaves a gold-threaded story
    In the purple of mountain and glen.
Stand up, and look out from the mansion
    That adorns the old scene of the past
On the fruitage of hope the expansion
    Of the fruits of your vigils forecast!
​While the shadows of Hood have been wheeling
    Away from the face of the sun,
What a glamour of change has been stealing
    On the fields that you painfully won !
Like the castles that fade at cock-crowing
    The enchantments arise and advance
Where the cities of commerce are glowing
    Like pearls in the braids of romance ;
For a state, in the shimmering armor
    Of the Pallas Athena has come,
And her segis is fringen with the warmer
    Refulgence that circles our home.
As for you, you are gray, and the thunder
    Of the battle has smitten each brow
Where the freshness of youth was turned under
    By Time's immemorial plow ;
But the pictures of memory linger,
    Like the shadows that turn to the East,
And will point with a tremulous finger
    To the things that are perished and ceased ;
For the trail and the foot-log have vanished,
    The canoe is a song and a tale,
And flickering church spire has banished
    The uncanny red man from the vale ;
The cayuse is no longer in fashion-
    He is gone with a flutter of heels,
And the old wars are dead, and their passions
    In the crystal of culture congeals;
And the wavering flare of the pitch light
    That illumines your banquets no moro,
Will return like a wandering witch-light
    And uncrimson the fancies of yore
When you dance the "Old Arkansaw" gaily
    In brogans that had followed the bear,
And quaffed the delight of Castaly
    From the fiddle that wailed like despair;
And so lightly you wrought with the hammer,
    And so truly with ax and with plow
And you blazed your own trails through the gram mar,
    As the record must fairly allow ;
But you builded a state in whose arches
    Shall be carven the deed and the name,
And posterity lengthens its marches
    In the golden starlight of your fame!