Now for something a little different. It speaks to the spirit that drives mankind to explore new lands and the unknown places. That spirit continues to this day to whisper into ears of those who will listen and heed the call . I like it very much.
This is the opening poem to a book called Famous Discoverers and Explorers of America by Charles H. L. Johnston (1917).
THE VOICE
A voice came from the westward, it whispered a message clear,
And the dripping fog banks parted as the clarion tones drew near;
It spoke of shores untrodden, and it sang of mountains bold,
Of shimmering sands in distant lands which were covered with glittering gold.
It sang of hemlock forests, where the moose roamed, and the bear,
Where the eider bred near the cascade’s head, and the lucivee had his lair.
It praised the rushing water falls, it told of the salmon red,
Who swam in the spuming ripples by the rushing river’s head.
It chanted its praise of the languorous days which lay ’neath the shimmering sun,
Of the birch canoe and the Indian, too, who trapped in the forests dun.
Yea, it told of the bars of silver, and it whispered of emeralds green,
Of topaz, sapphire, and amethyst, which shone with a dazzling sheen.
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;
’Twas the voice that called them onward, ’twas the voice that is calling still,
And the voice will call ’till the end of it all, and the voice has a conquering will.
A lucivee is a wildcat spirit of northern Wabanaki folklore.
