"Here there be tygers"

Difference
by Stephen Vincent Benét

My mind’s a map. A mad sea-captain drew it
Under a flowing moon until he knew it;
Winds with brass trumpets, puffy-cheeked as jugs,
And states bright-patterned like Arabian rugs.
“Here there be tygers.” “Here we buried Jim.”
Here is the strait where eyeless fishes swim
About their buried idol, drowned so cold
He weeps away his eyes in salt and gold. (more)


World map by Moroccan cartographer Al-Idrisi, 1154. Image from Wikimedia Commons.