I wrote this 2004 to help my kids remember the events of Columbus’s voyages. I built it upon the grade school rhyme.

In fourteen hundred ninety-two,
Columbus sailed the ocean blue,
Queen Isabella paid the way,
To open up a new gateway.

On the Santa Maria Columbus sailed,
The Nina, the Pinta beside him trailed.
Ninety men between the three,
All set sail for the open sea.

Seventy days without sight of land,
The crew grew weary and anger began,
At two a.m. on the twelfth of October,
Columbus’s voyage was finally over.

Land was found and anchors set,
On a day he would never forget.
Three times more he would again set sail,
Columbus refused to believe he failed.

Though India he did not find,
He changed the world for all time.

©2004 Virginia Donahue