Chartless

Chartless - meaning Summary

Knowing Without Direct Experience

The poem states a speaker’s confident knowledge of places and realities she has never directly experienced. Through simple, declarative lines, the speaker claims to know the look of heather and the feel of waves despite never having seen a moor or sea, and to be certain of divine presence without conversing with God or visiting Heaven. The poem contrasts absence of sight or visitation with inner assurance, suggesting imagination, faith, and inward conviction can substitute for empirical proof. A single extended metaphor of mapping underpins the speaker’s certainty.