Pioneers of North Dakota
Spread her fame!
Bid thy youths and bid thy maidens
Guard her name!--
Tell them of your dreams and visions--
Tell them of your great ambitions;--
How you fought to win the land;
Tell them of brave Custer's band.
Tell them how you fought the Red Man,
How he lost--
Tell them North Dakota's story
And the cost!--
Can they too, like you, the price pay?
Can they too, like you, their lives lay
Down, if need be, for their state?
Dare they share her every fate?--
* * * * *
To the children of Dakota
This we give,
First of all, a glorious vision
How to live--
Them we give our mines and "bad lands,"
Prairies broad and fertile wheat lands
Stretching from Missouri's bed
To the Valley of the Red.
And the fame of North Dakota's name
Shall rise,
Like the never-tiring Phoenix
To the skies!--
State of promise and of fair play,
State where rises bright a new day
For the weak and the oppressed,
State which millions shall call blest!
Men and women of Dakota
Who shall say
What the fruitage of our efforts
Of to-day?--
Labor then, nor lose the vision
Of this North Dakota's mission,
To free body, soul, and mind,
To help all their true work find.