Roncador of Caribee,
Coral dragon of the sea,
Ever sleeping with his teeth below the wave;
Woe to him who breaks the sleep!
Woe to them who sail the deep!
Woe to ship and man that fear a shipman's grave!
Hither many a galleon old,
Heavy-keeled with guilty gold,
Fled before the hardy rover smiting sore;
But the sleeper silent lay
Till the preyer and his prey
Brought their plunder and their bones to Roncador.
Be content, O conqueror!
Now our bravest ship of war,
War and tempest who had often braved before,
All her storied prowess past,
Strikes her glorious flag at last
To the formless thing that builded Roncador.
James Jeffrey Roche.
In 1896 Tennessee celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of her admission to the Union, by an exposition held at Nashville.
TENNESSEE
PRIZE CENTENNIAL ODE
[June 1, 1896]
She is touching the cycle,—her tender tread
Is soft on the hearts of her hallowed dead,
And she proudly stands where her sons have bled
For God and Tennessee;