The celebration of the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown included the arrival of full-scale replicas of the three ships that carried the English settlers across the Atlantic to their new home in Virginia. As I read the news accounts of the reenactment, it occurred to me that I already knew the names of the three ships involved. Indeed, I would never forget them, thanks to a poem I read when I was a schoolboy.

The poem was “Southern Ships and Settlers” by Rosemary and Stephen Vincent Benet. It begins, appropriately enough, with the arrival of those three English ships:

O, where are you going, "Goodspeed" and "Discovery"?
With meek "Susan Constant" to make up the three?
We're going to settle the wilds of Virginia,
For gold and adventure we're crossing the sea.

Thanks to the poem, I will always remember the names of those three ships. I will also remember the hardships faced by the Jamestown settlers:

And what will you find there? Starvation and fever.
We’ll eat of the adder and quarrel and rail.
All but sixty shall die of the first seven hundred,
But a nation begins with the voyage we sail.

The same poem informs its readers that Maryland was founded as a refuge for oppressed English Catholics, and it tells how the state’s principal city got its name.

O, what are you doing, my handsome Lord Baltimore?
Where are you sending your “Ark" and your "Dove?"
I'm sending them over the ocean to Maryland
To build up a refuge for people I love.

Both Catholic and Protestant there may find harbor,
Though I am a Catholic by creed and by prayer.
The South is Virginia, the North is New England.
I'll go in the middle and plant my folk there.

The poem also tells us that Georgia was founded by another philanthropist -- to give people imprisoned for debt a fresh start in life, and to give dissenters from the Church of England a place where they could worship freely.

O, what are you dreaming, cock-hatted James Oglethorpe?
And who are the people you take in the "Anne"?
They're poor English debtors whom hard laws imprison,
And poor, distressed Protestants, fleeing a ban.

I'll settle them pleasantly on the Savannah,
With Germans and Highlanders, thrifty and strong.
They shall eat Georgia peaches in huts of palmetto,
And their land shall be fertile, their days shall be long.

The poem has more to say about the origins of the American South. The founding of North and South Carolina are covered in additional charming quatrains. But you get the general idea.

The poem is a painless history lesson. The lilting rhymes make it easy, even enjoyable, to memorize. It’s a valuable aid to learning.

Is it still taught in today’s schools? I hope so, but I rather doubt it.