There was a time for discoveries –
For the headlands looming above in the
First light and the surf and the
Crying of gulls: for the curve of the
Coast north into secrecy.
That time is past.
The last lands have been peopled.
The oceans are known now.
Señora: once the maps have all been made
A man were better dead than find new continents.
A man would better never have been born
Than find upon the open ocean flowers
Drifted from islands where there are no islands,
Or midnight, out of sight of any land,
Smell on the altering air the odor of rosemary.
No fortune passes that misfortune –
To lift along the evening of the sky,
Certain as sun and sea, a new-found land
Steep from an ocean where no landfall can be.
Archibald MacLeish, 1892-1982 – “Voyage West” from Collected Poems: 1917-1982
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