4524000Poems — Burial of Hernando de SotoMary Caroline Denver
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.
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!
Why came he here, like an exiled man, To rest in an exile's grave? A lovelier and more famous land Was his beyond the wave. Perchance the shores that he loved the best Shall never sound his name, Yet the kingly realm of the mighty West Will guard and preserve his fame.
A sound of sorrow, a stifled sigh Came up from the rolling wave; Like the tearful cry when the mighty die, It burst from his opening grave. For the death of the brave, that funeral strain Uttered its tones of grief; Yet woke it not his slumbering train. To weep for their fallen chief.
They buried him there, where a thousand lights Looked down on his tranquil breast; The night wept tears o'er his funeral rites,— Stars lighted his place of rest. The dark Mississippi's turbid tide Over his bones shall flow, And where these lie in its channel wide, No man shall ever know.
They sunk him beneath the cold, dark wave,— With his glory clothed and crowned; A royaller grave he could not crave, Than that which he sought and found. And long as the Mississippi's surge Rolls down to the Mexique sea, Its solemn chant shall th' eternal dirge Of Hernando de Soto be.
