Famous Discoverers and Explores of America / Their Voyages, Battles, and Hardships in Traversing and Conquering the Unknown Territories of a New World

by Charles H. L. Johnston

Of warriors red with feathered head, of buffalo, puma, and deer,

Of the coral strand in a palm-tree land, and of dizzying mountains sheer.

And the voice grew louder and louder, and it fell upon listening ears,

Of the men who had heard strange music which was moistened with women’s tears.

Of the men who loved to wander, of the souls who cared to roam,

Whose bed was the hemlock’s branches, who rejoiced in the forest’s gloom.

Leif the Lucky, Magellan, deLeon and Cortés bold,

Cartier, Drake, and Franklin; Pizarro and Baffin, old;

Shackleton, Hudson, Roosevelt; brave Peary and gay Champlain,

Frémont, Lewis, Balboa; Verendrye, and the Cabots twain;