Explorer Poems
 
Vikings
By NR
One Viking is Eric the Red
He made a person be dead.
Then he was banished
Because he made some people vanished.
When the Vikings did a raid,
It made the people be afraid.
In 1100 A.D.
The Vikings stopped to sail the sea.

Prince Henry
By TO'C
From 1421 to 1433
Prince Henry's sailors were at sea.
In 1434, instead of bringing fewer slaves, the sailors brought more.
He saved the slaves and made them pay
For he was Prince Henry the Great!
At the age of sixty-six,
Prince Henry lay in his Christian grave dead as a stick.

Leif Eriksson
By JP
In the year 1001 A.D.
Leif set out on the sea.
Even though he was a Norse,
He was blown off his course.
He was looking for America,
But soon found Canada.
Leif then found a land where vines grew,
And then he found that there were grapes there, too.
Like his father who discovered Greenland,
Leif discovered a land named Vinland.
When Leif returned to Norway,
He decided never again to go away.
Bartholomew Diaz
By KR
Six years before the year 1493,
Bartholomew Diaz sailed the deep blue sea.
Finding a new land one day,
He named this land Herdsman Bay.
To Africa's southern tip
Is where he sailed his ship.
Off the coast of France, at the bottom of the sea
Is where Bartholomew and his ship will always be.
Marco Polo
By NB
 In 1271 Marco rose with the sun
With his brother he said goodbye to his mother
He slid on his boots and started on his routes
He opened up trade and lots of friends made.
In Italy he was a boy
To Khan he was a joy.
27 years he dwelled and his reputation swelled.
His leaving was marked by fireworks sparked.
Back in Venice they hailed him. In Genoa they jailed him.
So why in the pool when it's time to make fool
When "Marco" I cry - It's "Polo" you reply
I don't really know why!
  
Christopher Columbus
By JL, MR, and DS-Z
In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
Columbus really had no clue
What the heck he was going to do.
On the first voyage he had three ships;
He didn't need to use any whips.
On his second voyage he left 42 colonists.
When he returned, one said, "You won't find all of us."
On his third trip he was sent back in chains,
So the queen demanded the person responsible be slain.
On the fourth voyage there was a hurricane,
When he escaped he used a cane.
He had a disease called arthritis,
Sailing on the sea he did really miss.
When he died he was 55,
Now you know what he did when he was alive.
Vasco Nunez de Balboa
By SL
In 1475 Vasco Nunez did arrive
He sailed on the Main from Spain to Hispanola
But he couldn't pay his tola
He stowed away so he wouldn't have to pay
But he saw the Pacific and claimed it specific for Spain
But in 1519 he did dread as they painfully chopped off his head.
 
Samuel de Champlain
By DL
Champlain wanted to be the best,
So he went to explore the far, far west.
He found Quebec and Montreal,
And they weren't very very small.
Then in 1535,
Champlain's death did suddenly arrive.
Ferdinand Magellan
By AC-G
In 1519 Ferdinand Magellan got quite keen
of the scene
Of the ocean blue in his ship quite new.
He and his crew headed west
Without a pest.
They found a place
Bringing a smile to their face
Called the Strait of Magellan.
Without losing his men
He reached the Indies, then
Back to Portugal he did go.
Coronado
By KL
In 1535, Francisco Coronado did arrive
In Mexico. Then he said he'd go
To the Seven Cities of Gold
Which was said to hold

A lot of gold. 
But to his surprise, he found Zuni and Hopi houses that were old.
In 1554 Francisco was alive no more
So he could no longer roam
So this is the end of the poem.
Hernando Cortez
By KG
In 1519 Hernando Cortez sailed the sea
With more on board than three.
He planned to go to Mexico
And to Mexico he did go
And there behold
He found gold.
Hernando Cortez sailed the ocean blue
With more on board than just two.
 
Cabeza de Vaca
By AM
In 1488
Cabeza de Vaca was born, not ready for fate
He took his mother's maiden name
Which happened to lead him to great fame.
In June 1527,
Cabeza left to find heaven.
Instead of reaching his dream
He came across a land never before seen.
He wanted to sail
To Japan, but, yes, he did fail.
He got an illness
And stayed behind while the other men went to find Mexico.
His good friend stayed with him
And later they saw a fin.
It turned out their ship was right there
And they sailed back home all in great care.
Cabeza died at 67
And then went up to heaven.
John Cabot
By TBI
In the year 1450 Cabot said to the sun,
"I will have some fun before the day is done."
His fun did come
During the year 1498
When he sailed across the ocean blue.
Then when he returned
And he did too
Turned himself into a floating carcass
on the ocean blue.
Jacques Cartier
By LdH
In 1491 Jacques Cartier's life had just begun.
He did not know that he was going to live a life of explorations,
And even find a great many new nations.
As a boy he fished with his father off the coast of Newfoundland,
And wished he could go beyond the icy mountain.
Years later the king did request
That he find a passage to the northwest.
Of course he did not protest,
For he wanted to sail to the northwest.
When he was 43, he set out to sea.
He went through the Strait of Bella Isle,
After he had travelled for several miles.
He had been trying to find a waterway,
But instead he ended up near Chaleui Bay.
He saw a polar bear,
But he was aware that the king wouldn't care.
When he returned to France,
Crowds cheered,
But Jacques feared,
That the king would not be happy.
A year later he stepped onto another ship
For he was going on his next trip.
 James Cook
By LR
 James Cook was born a tall, strong lad
Who served the Navy and his Dad,
A farm laborer.
On the date of 1768,
Cook was sent to debate,
Whether he could search and find
A continent using his intelligent mind.
Terrific! Bravo! There they go! Crowds cheered when Cook left.
They returned to England without success
And hoped for the best.
After a while he was sent out again, again to find within time
A continent in the south.
This time Cook sailed across the Antarctic Circle.
Of course he failed once more
In finding what he hoped for.
It was cold but James Cook sailed around the world
On this second voyage of three.
On his third voyage he wanted to see
A passage that was supposed to be
Connecting the east to west of North America.
He traveled west on the Pacific to reach a place terrific,
He searched and searched all in vain
And this brought him great pain.
He went to Hawaii soon to find
That the natives there were not very kind.
He left but came back for repairs
Only to find himself in a very bad snare.
On February 14, 1779 Cook's day started out fine,
But Cook couldn't see the natives' armors shine,
And there was a fight and in the end
Cook lay dead upon the sand.
Giovanni da Verrazano
By DC
Verrazano was a paisano born in 1485
Florence is the city where he became alive.
As he got older
He became a bit bolder
And decided that he would explore.
So he took a chance
And sailed on behalf of France
Over the ocean blue.
When did he arrive?
Why, in 1525.
He sailed along the harbor in New York
We don't know if he celebrated by popping a cork.
He anchored in a place called the narrows
While praying he wouldn't encounter any arrows.
After sailing south in 1528.
Verrazano met his fate.
He anchored at sea
What a mistake that would be.
He died in Guadeloupe
He should have stayed with his group.
 
Pedro Cabral
By MC
(with some help from MM)
Pedro Cabral had thirteen ships
That he took with him on his trips.
From Portugal he came
To represent his name.
There was a harsh storm
That was not very warm.
It got him off track
And he had to go back.
In March of 1500
Pedro led
The rest of the ships
On one of his last trips.
When Pedro discovered Brazil
He had a feeling that gave him a thrill.
He took a vacation
To celebrate the new nation.

Henry Hudson  

In sixteen hundred and nine
Henry Hudson wasn't at all fine.

On a trip to the northwest,
He faced quite a test.

His crew wanted to mutiny,
But he convinced them to wait and see.

His ship, the Half Moon,
Reached Maine around noon.

They headed down the coast
But they were unable to boast

That they had found the passageway
That would have made Hudson's day.

Instead they explored  a river and traded for oysters,
Near New York, but not the Cloisters.

Seeing the Tapanzee
Made them happy

Until they reached Albany and found
That they were not Northwest Passage bound.

Hudson called it a River of Mountains
Even though it had no fountains.

He returned to his English home
But again had to roam.

This time however, his crew set him adrift in the cold
And he was never again seen, it is told.

Vasco da Gama

From Portugal did da Gama sail
For he was determined not to fail.

At discovering an ocean route around Good Hope
In Africa, he was able to cope

With unhappy people along the way.
He traded but was not always willing to pay.

To India, da Gama did next go
But he had to leave quickly so

There weren't many goods inside
His ship and many crewmen died

However, da Gama was a hero in name
And provided him money and fame.

Ponce de Leon

In fourteen hundred ninety-three,
Ponce de Leon sailed the sea.
(with Columbus)

He became the governor on Hispanola,
 But there was no cola.

He went to Puerto Rico for the same job
And lost it and did sob.

Next he headed off to find the Fountain of Youth
And that's the truth.

He spent a lot of time in Florida, it would seem.
Because he discovered the Gulf Stream.

He tried to start a colony near Sanibel
Oh well.

The natives fought him under the sun
And he died in 1521.

Francisco Pizarro

Pizarro was a bit bizarro.

He never learned to read or write
But he certainly knew how to start a fight.

He learned to explore with Balboa, his friend,
And they went to the end
of the land by the Pacific Ocean
Where he saw the waves in motion.

He went to Peru where he met the Inca king
And with a zing

Killed him and stole his gold
And tried very hard to hold
Onto the stolen government.
Then he got into an argument

With his friend whom he killed in a fit
And that was it.

Amerigo Vespucci

Amerigo Vespucci told a lie,
But he confessed before he did die.

He said he had beaten Columbus to the west
When, in fact, he did not make that test.

Vespucci did explore the coast
of Brazil, Rio de la Plata and most
of South America.

Modest he was NOT, nor dim,
He suggested they name the new land after him.

And they did!

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