"Fire and Sleet and Candlelight
For this you’ve striven
Daring, to fail:
Your sky is riven
Like a tearing veil.
For this, you’ve wasted
Wings of your youth;
Divined, and tasted
Bitter springs of truth.
From sand unslakèd
Twisted strong cords,
And wandered naked
Among trysted swords.
There’s a word unspoken,
A knot untied.
Whatever is broken
The earth may hide.
The road was jagged
Over sharp stones:
Your body’s too ragged
To cover your bones.
The wind scatters
Tears upon dust;
Your soul’s in tatters
Where the spears thrust.
Your race is ended—
See, it is run:
Nothing is mended
Under the sun.
Straight as an arrow
You fall to a sleep
Not too narrow
And not too deep."
—Elinor Wylie
"Though the journal was created for and by members of the expedition, readers back home were always a consideration. In early issues Shackleton notes that widespread production and distribution from the South Pole would be nearly impossible but implies that circulation among a public readership back home in England was a future goal. This goal was realized when Smith, Elder, and Company of London published a three-volume edition as an exact reproduction of the South Polar Times." —Callie Beattie via via @harryskeeler.bsky.social
So many have gone to order books it crashed the website.


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