Than all whose deeds recording fame has told;

Adventurous spirits! whom no bounds of fear

Can teach one pause in rapine’s fierce career;

Since, bursting thus the barriers of the main,

Ye dare to violate my lonely reign,

Where, till this moment, from the birth of time,

No sail e’er broke the solitude sublime:

Since thus ye pierce the veil by Nature thrown

O’er the dark secrets of the Deep Unknown,

Ne’er yet reveal’d to aught of mortal birth,