Classic Poem

Adventurers, from voyagings returned,
Whether beyond Antarctic Erebus,
Whether through Congo's forests back to us,
Tell what of wild and wondrous things they learned,
What blizzards blinded, or what fevers burned,
And how, when almost perishing afar
(Now sound again, except a crutch or scar),
For home and song ineffably they yearned.
We read their books, with maps in blues and reds,
And landscapes pictured under alien suns,
Or under sultry moon or frosty star;
Then, studying their portraits, bearded heads,
Thrill into words: " O these the mighty ones,
These the strong heroes, " — as indeed they are.

Adventurer, from voyagings which passed
Beyond earth's continents, whilst things befell
Which none who've met before e'er lived to tell,
And I, it seems: the first, perhaps the last.
You shall not see my portrait, and my name
You must forget; but, if you read my book,
Though unadorned, you'll say (by pause or look):
" Man is still man, even when without his fame. "
You need not say " a hero. " ... Yet regard
This tale at least in one respect like theirs:
That, urged like them, by what of high and hard
I found in awful tracts of Otherwheres,
I made my notes with an Explorer's pen,
And, coming home, dared write them out for men.