This poem was taught in my primary school in British Honduras, now Belize,in Central America, in the late 1950s. If someone out there knows the name of the author, could she/he please share it with me. The poem begins: "There was an indian/Who had known no change ..."

There Was an Indian by SIR J. C. SQUIRE


There was an Indian, who had known no change,
Who strayed content along a sunlit beach
Gathering shells. He heard a sudden strange
Commingled noise: looked up; and gasped for speech.

For in the bay, where nothing was before,
Moved on the sea, by magic, huge canoes
With bellying cloths on poles, and not one oar,
And fluttering coloured signs and clambering crews.

And he, in fear, this naked man alone,
His fallen hands forgetting all their shells,
His lips gone pale, knelt low behind a stone,
And stared, and saw, and did not understand,
Columbus's doom-burdened caravels
Slant to the shore, and all their seaman land.

Thanks very much indeed for your very kind assistance. Wishing you all the best.