Monday, October 20, 2025

For Lands Not Yet Laid Down in Any Chart

Possibilities
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Where are the Poets, unto whom belong
 The Olympian heights; whose singing shafts were sent
 Straight to the mark, and not from bows half bent,
 But with the utmost tension of the thong?
Where are the stately argosies of song,
 Whose rushing keels made music as they went
 Sailing in search of some new continent,
 With all sail set, and steady winds and strong?
Perhaps there lives some dreamy boy, untaught
 In schools, some graduate of the field or street,
 Who shall become a master of the art,
An admiral sailing the high seas of thought,
 Fearless and first, and steering with his fleet
 For lands not yet laid down in any chart.