Editing Atlantis (section)

===A land lost in the distance===
[[File:Faroe stamp 493 Djurhuus poems - atlantis.jpg|thumb|A Faroe Islands postage stamp honoring [[Janus Djurhuus]]'s poem "Atlantis" ]]

The fact that Atlantis is a lost land has made of it a metaphor for something no longer attainable. For the American poet [[Edith Willis Linn Forbes]], "The Lost Atlantis" stands for idealisation of the past; the present moment can only be treasured once that is realised.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.blackcatpoems.com/f/the_lost_atlantis.html| title = The Lost Atlantis|author=Edith Willis Linn Forbes|author-link=Edith Willis Linn Forbes|publisher=Black Cat Poems|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100923162209/http://www.blackcatpoems.com/f/the_lost_atlantis.html|archive-date=23 September 2010}}</ref> [[Ella Wheeler Wilcox]] finds the location of "The Lost Land" (1910) in one's carefree youthful past.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.litscape.com/author/Ella_Wheeler_Wilcox/The_Lost_Land.html| title = The Lost Land|publisher=Litscape|author= Ella Wheeler Wilcox|author-link= Ella Wheeler Wilcox}}</ref> Similarly, for the Irish poet [[Eavan Boland]] in "Atlantis, a lost sonnet" (2007), the idea was defined when "the old fable-makers searched hard for a word/ to convey that what is gone is gone forever".<ref>{{cite web| url = https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/atlantis%E2%80%94-lost-sonnet| title = Atlantis—A Lost Sonnet|author=Eavan Boland|author-link=Eavan Boland|website=Poets.org| access-date = 7 February 2016| archive-date = 22 April 2016| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160422224620/https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/atlantis%E2%80%94-lost-sonnet| url-status = dead}}</ref>

For some male poets too, the idea of Atlantis is constructed from what cannot be obtained. [[Charles Bewley]] in his [[Newdigate Prize]] poem (1910) thinks it grows from dissatisfaction with one's condition,

{{poemquote|
And, because life is partly sweet 
And ever girt about with pain, 
We take the sweetness, and are fain 
To set it free from grief's alloy
}}

in a dream of Atlantis.<ref>[[Charles Bewley|Bewley, Charles]]. [https://web.archive.org/web/20160423071213/http://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng/charles-bewley/atlantis-the-newdigate-prize-poem-1910-lwe/1-atlantis-the-newdigate-prize-poem-1910-lwe.shtml ''Atlantis; The Newdigate prize poem, 1910 online'']. 1910, p. 11. Via ebooksread.com.</ref> Similarly for the Australian [[Gary Catalano]] in a 1982 prose poem, it is "a vision that sank under the weight of its own perfection".<ref>Gary Catalano, Heaven of Rags, Sydney 1982, [http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/catalano-gary/atlantis-0359028 ''Atlantis'']. Australian Poetry Library. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160423174323/http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/catalano-gary/atlantis-0359028 |date=23 April 2016 }}</ref> [[W. H. Auden]], however, suggests a way out of such frustration through the metaphor of journeying toward Atlantis in his poem of 1941.<ref>{{cite web| url = https://www.poeticous.com/w-h-auden/atlantis-1| title = Atlantis|author=W. H. Auden|author-link=W. H. Auden|publisher=poeticious.com}}</ref> While travelling, he advises the one setting out, you will meet with many definitions of the goal in view, only realising at the end that the way has all the time led inward.<ref>[[Bonnie Costello]], "Setting out for Atlantis", from ''Auden at Work'', Palgrave Macmillan 2015, [https://books.google.com/books?id=AauhCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA133 pp. 133–53]</ref>