Classic Poem

While discovery is the fact,
Sea-skill and the way to find,
Flee, land, more inland,
Even to the devil's bosom, loneliness.

Which cannot comfort,
But which cannot give a foreign name
Or make you other than desolate.

Yet be not undiscoverable,
Except where land seen is mere sailor's fancy,
Not native strangeness.

For if you be a true unknown,
Discovery must fade into you
And the foreign name translate,

And the discoverer succeed the devil,
Even unto loneliness—
To comfort by it,
By it call you known.