In the dark night a giant slumbered untouched for centuries
'til awakened by a white man's cry: "This is the Eden I was to find."
There were lands to be charted and to be claimed for a crown,
when a hero was made by the length he could stay in this dangerous land of hateful hate.
Curiosity filled the heads of these, there was an upper room they had to see.
Curiosity killed the best of these for a hero's hometown welcoming.
Still they moved on and on.
Who came building missions?
Unswerving men of the cloth who gave their lives in numbers untold so that black sheep entered the fold.
Captured like human livestock, destined for slavery.
Naked, walked to the shore where great ships moored for the hellbound journies.
Bought and sold with a hateful hate.
Curiosity filled the breasts of these with some strange ecstasy.
Curiosity killed the best of these by robbing their lives of dignity.
Still they moved on and on.
Calling men of adventure for a jungle bush safari.
Come conquer the, his claws and teeth.
See death in his eyes to know you're alive.
European homesteads grew up in the colonies with civilized plans for wild hinterlands, their guns and God willing.
Such a hateful hate.
Curiosity spilled the blood of these for their spotted skins and ivory.
Curiosity filled the heads of these madmen with the lies of destiny.
Curiosity spilled the blood of these, then blotted their lives from history.
Curiosity filled the heads of these, one man claimed all that he could see.
Curiosity still entices these madmen with a lusting and a greed.
Their legacy, legacy, legacy...
[ Spoken intro from: Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey (byLillian Schlissel) ]
"While the young folks were having their good times
some of the mothers were giving birth to their babies.
Three babies were born in our company that summer.
My cousin, Emily, gave birth to a son in Utah,
forty miles north of the Great Salt Lake one morning.
But the next morning she traveled on
'til noon when a stop was made and another child was born,
this time Susan Mollmeyer.
And gave the baby the name Alice Nevada."
Follow the typical signs, the hand-painted lines, down prairieroads.
Pass the lone church spire.
Pass the talking wire from where to who knows?
There's no way to divide the beauty of the sky from the wildwestern plains.
Where a man could drift, in legendary myth, by roaming overspaces.
The land was free and the price was right.
Dakota on the wall is a white-robed woman, broad yet maidenly.
Such power in her hand as she hails the wagon man's family.
I see Indians that crawl through this mural that recalls ourhistory.
Who were the homestead wives?
Who were the gold rush brides?
Does anybody know?
Do their works survive their yellow fever lives in the pages theywrote?
The land was free, yet it cost their lives.
In miner's lust for gold, a family's house was bought and sold,piece by piece.
A widow staked her claim on a dollar and his name, sopainfully.
In letters mailed back home her Eastern sisters
they would moan as they would read accounts of
madness, childbirth, loneliness and grief.
