I’d won the worldbut like aforsaken explorer, I’d lostmy map.

Anne Sexton
About This Quote

The speaker in this poem, John Muir, is thinking about the sense of wonder that he had experienced when he first encountered the ocean. As a boy, he had dreamed of exploring the Sierra Nevada mountains and the Cascade Range before he was old enough to do so. When he finally made his way to these places, however, his experience was so much greater than what he had imagined. He was awestruck by the grandeur of it all.

He felt as if he were standing at one of the ends of the Earth. And yet, what was most surprising to him was how much he still didn’t know about nature. He thought that he knew all there was to know about the mountains and forests that surrounded him.

But then he realized that there must be more out there than what could be seen with his own eyes. And so it goes with everything in life: The more we know, the more there is to know.

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