If many a daring spirit must discover
The chartless world, why should they glory lack?
Because athwart the skyline they sank over
Few, few, the shipmen be that have come back.
Yet one, wreck’d oft, hath by a giddy cord
The rugged head of Destiny regain’d—
One from the maelstrom’s lap hath swum aboard—
One from the polar sleep himself unchain’d.
But he, acquainted well with every tone
Of madness whining in his shroudage slender,
From storm and mutiny emerged alone
Self-righted from the dreadful self-surrender:
Rich from the isles where sojourn long is death
Won back to cool Thames and Elizabeth,
Sea-weary, yes, but human still, and whole,—
A circumnavigator of the soul.