[2] The statement has been carelessly made in some juvenile books
dealing with the age of discovery, that in the time of Columbus nobody
knew that the world was round. This of course is not even approximately
the case. The conception of the earth as a sphere was generally set
forth in what might be called books of science, and even in some popular
works like that of Sir John Maundeville, who died in 1372. Its
acceptance by the public, however, may be said to have followed somewhat
the course of the Darwinian theory in the nineteenth century. Long after
evolution was admitted as a truth by scientific men there were schools
and even colleges which refused to teach it, and in fact it was not
accepted by the public until the generation which first heard of it had
died.
SUNSET SONG
Down upon our seaward light,
Swept by all the winds that blow,
Birds come reeling in their flight--
(_Ay de mi, Cristofero!_)
Petrels tossing on the gale,
Falcons daring sleet and hail,
Curlews whistling high and far,
Waifs that cross the harbor bar
Borne from isles we do not know--
(_Ay de mi, Cristofero!_)
Round our island haven blest
Waves like drifted mountain snow
Break from out the shoreless West--
(_Ay de mi, Cristofero!_)
Cast ashore a broken spar
Born beneath some alien star,
Broken, beaten by the wave--
In what far-off unknown grave
Lie the hands that shaped it so?
(_Ay de mi, Cristofero!_)
Sails upon the gray world's edge
Like mute phantoms come and go,--
Life and honor men will pledge--
(_Ay de mi, Cristofero!_)
For the pearls and gems and gold
That the burning Indies hold.
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