Vasco Da Gama

The first European to discover the sea route to India he lives on in marine history
With Columbus and Tasman and Amerigho and other great men of the sea
The Portuguese Vasco Da Gama ventured far from his native shore
Even further than his Countryman Dias had travelled a decade before.

He's been dead for nearly five centuries but his name out of history won't fade
The adventures of Vasco Da Gama the stuff of which legends are made
One of the great early explorers he died in fifteen twenty four
When he was in his early fifties though his fame will live forever more.

Many of his sailors died of scurvy and few of them lived to be old
Theirs was the lot of the seafarers in their great adventures for gold
But to their end they remained true to Da Gama and with him they sailed the high seas
And with them took to other cultures the culture of the Portuguese.

One of the great early explorers his legend is still living today
The one who died in Cochin in India from Portugal so far away
He risked the wild waves fraught with danger in his quest for fortune and fame
He discovered the sea route to India and Vasco Da Gama was his name.