Classic Poem

On a shadowy plain where cypress groves
And spreading palm trees rise,
And the antlered deer, swift-footed, roves,
The brave De Soto lies.

They have made him a bed, where high o'erhead
The trailing moss entwines
With the leaves of the campion flower red,
And gleaming ivy vines.

Over his fevered forehead creeps,
From the cedar branches high,
The wind that sleeps in the liquid deeps
Of the changeless southern sky,

And the Mississippi's turbid tide,
Broad and free, flows past,
Like the current wide, on which men glide
To another ocean vast.

He dreams of the days in sunny Spain
When heart and hope were strong,
And he hears again on the trackless main
The sound of the sailor's song.

Now, with the fierce Pizarro's band,
To wield the sword anew,
He takes command on the golden sand
Of the shores of proud Peru,

And northward now, from Tampa Bay,
With glittering spear and lance,
With pennons gay, and horses' neigh,
His cohorts brave advance.

Again, as the glittering dawn awakes
From its dreams of purple mist,
By the stoled priest he kneels and takes
The holy eucharist,

And the echoing woods and boundless skies
Are hushed to soft content,
As the strains of the old Te Deum rise
On a new continent.

Again he sees in the thicket damp,
By the light of a ghastly moon,
The crocodile, foul from his native swamp,
Plunge in the dark lagoon.

Again o'er the wild savannas flee
From his feet the frightened deer,
And the curlews scream from tree to tree
Discordant notes of fear.

From deep magnolia woods abloom,
And orange thickets white,
Drunk with the sensuous perfume
Shrill mocking birds take flight,

And calm in the depths of her silken nest,
Embowered in softest green,
With scarlet breast and golden crest,
The wild macaw is seen.

In the waving grass, on yucca spires,
Near flowers of pallid hue
Are born the erythrina's fires
And the starry nixia's blue;

The rich gordonia's bosom swells
Where the brooklet ripples by,
And silvery-white halesia bells
Reflect the cloudless sky,

And graceful southern mosses, brown,
With gleaming ivies twine,
And heavy purple blooms weigh down
The dark wistaria vine.

Now on his bold Castilian band
The native warriors press,
From their haunts in the trackless prairie land,
And the unknown wilderness,

And the flame he has kindled gleams again
On his sword of trusty steel,
As he burns, midst the yells of savage men,
Their village of Mobile.


Like the look of triumph o'er victories won
That dying conquerors wore,
Or the light that bursts from the setting sun
On some cold, craggy shore,

The fire of hope lights up anew
The brave adventurer's brow,
A roseate flash, — then death's dull hue,
And his dream is over now.

So, on the plain where cypress groves
And spreading palm trees rise,
And the antlered deer, swift-footed, roves,
The brave De Soto dies.