hopelessly pretentious and aggrieved by Levis

That Levi's commercial was not written by some agency genius. It's Walt freaking Whitman. & I don't know how he'd feel about it, frankly.

From Leaves of Grass...

Pioneers! O Pioneers!
COME my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready,

Have you your pistols? have you your sharp-edged axes?

Pioneers! O pioneers!


For we cannot tarry here,

We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,

We the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend,

Pioneers! O pioneers!


O you youths, Western youths,

So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship,

Plain I see you Western youths, see you tramping with the fore-
most


Pioneers! O pioneers!


Have the elder races halted?

Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond
the seas?


We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson,

Pioneers! O pioneers!


All the past we leave behind,

We debouch upon a newer mightier world, varied world,

Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march,

Pioneers! O pioneers!


We detachments steady throwing,

Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep,

Conquering, holding, daring, venturing as we go the unknown ways,

Pioneers! O pioneers!


We primeval forests felling,

We the rivers stemming, vexing we and piercing deep the mines
within,


We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil upheaving,
Pioneers! O pioneers!