Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.
Lines 89-92
Not for delectations sweet,
Not the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful and the studious,
Not the riches safe and palling, not for us the tame enjoyment,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
- Oh now here's a shift. Instead of saying yes to all these pioneering groups, our speaker is now saying no to something quite different.
- No to creature comforts! He wants nothing to do with sweets, slippers, cushions. None of that squishy stuff.
- These "riches" and enjoyments are "tame." They seem to sap out the strength that comes from living a hard life. They're certainly not invigorating.
- Perhaps he's aware that this is what comes once the trees have been chopped, the trails have been blazed, the factories have been built, and the rivers have been bridged.
- Which is maybe why he wants his pioneers to keep moving always, never to dawdle for too long in one spot. They'll get soft.
- And that's the kiss of death.
Lines 93-96
Do the feasters gluttonous feast?
Do the corpulent sleepers sleep? have they lock'd and bolted doors?
Still be ours the diet hard, and the blanket on the ground,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
- Our speaker takes a look at what we're guessing are the non-pioneers, the "gluttonous," "corpulent sleepers." In other words, the fat, lazy lubs. Real nice, Whitman.
- He makes these people who love material, civilized comforts seem somehow corrupt. They're scared of danger (those locked doors), and spoiled by their excess of food and sleep.
- What does our speaker like instead? The tough pioneer life, of course!
- He's for the hard diet, sleeping on the hard ground, the embrace of danger and death.
- He could seriously give Bear Grylls a run for his money.