BURIAL OF HERNANDO DE SOTO.
[" The discoverer of the Mississippi was buried at the dead of night, unknown to his soldiers, beneath its waves. Of all his discoveries, he found none so magnificent as his grave."]
There came no voice on the midnight air
To tell of a warrior gone;
They chanted there no funeral prayer
For the soul of the lifeless one.
But the sound of waves, as they glided by,
A solemn requiem gave,
And the starlight showered from the mourning sky,
Like gems, on the deep dark wave.
To tell of a warrior gone;
They chanted there no funeral prayer
For the soul of the lifeless one.
But the sound of waves, as they glided by,
A solemn requiem gave,
And the starlight showered from the mourning sky,
Like gems, on the deep dark wave.
His soldiers lay around him there
Wrapt up in slumber deep,
They felt no fear, they knew no care,
Yet his was a deeper sleep.
They dreamed that they stood on the distant shore
Of their native land again,—
He, even in visions, will roam no more
Of the fields of sunny Spain!
Wrapt up in slumber deep,
They felt no fear, they knew no care,
Yet his was a deeper sleep.
They dreamed that they stood on the distant shore
Of their native land again,—
He, even in visions, will roam no more
Of the fields of sunny Spain!
