TAMPA.
And this is Tampa: yonder lies the Bay
That Spanish cavaliers
Enchanted saw upon their unknown way,
In far and faded years, —
That to their eyes so calm and placid seemed,
So bright and wondrous fair,
They drifted on with silent lips, and dreamed
The Holy Ghost was there.
Here lies a fortress old, a field of death;
And here, as years increase,
The useless cannon hide their heads beneath
The snow-white sands of peace.
The Gulf winds warm the orange orchards stir,
And from dark trees like walls,
In long festoons and threads of gossamer,
The trailing gray moss falls.
And ships come in from tropic seas, and go,
And sails the Gulf winds fan;
And few do know, or seem to care to know,
That here that march began
That set that crown of empires in the West,
And gave the nations birth
That stand like gracious queens, above the rest,
Upon the thrones of earth.
The town is fair, and fairer yet the Bay,
And warm the trade-winds blow
Where lateen-sails moved on their lonely way,
Three centuries ago.
De Soto's hands lie deep beneath the wave,
Dust are his cavaliers;
The cypressed waters murmuring o'er his grave,
The silent pilot hears
In that far river where they laid him down,
Where low the ring-doves sigh,
And oft the full moon drops her silver crown,
From night's meridian sky.
And here, where first his banners caught the breeze,
The peopled towns arise;-
And his great faith, that piloted the seas
Beneath uncertain skies,
And dared the wilds by Christian feet untrod,
Is strong with hope to man;
And here, where touched the new world's ark of God,
Fair skies the rainbows span.
O Tampa, Tampa, near the Gulf's warm tide!
Who would not linger here,
Where, on the homes the orange-gardens hide,
June smileth all the year?
Where never comes the autumn nor the spring,
Nor summer's fiercer glow;
Where never cease the mocking-birds to sing,
Nor roses new to blow.