| |
| A LITTLE group of worn-out men, | |
| With weary limbs and shattered forms, | |
| Whose stalwart wills and gallant hearts | |
| Were strong to face dark danger’s storms! | |
| And one amidst them, slight of frame, | 5 |
| And pale from strife with death and pain, | |
| A hero’s soul, whose martyr zeal | |
| Bore nobly suffering’s cankering chain! | |
| |
| They met within the solemn aisles | |
| Of ice-built shrine, a temple grand, | 10 |
| Alone upon a frozen sea, | |
| The saving and the rescued band, | |
| Mid crystal columns reared aloft | |
| Against a gray and cloud-draped dome,— | |
| The only thing—that shadowed sky— | 15 |
| In all the waste that looked like home! | |
| |
| They stood with bowed, uncovered heads, | |
| With reverent mien and moistened eyes, | |
| Remembering scenes that long had passed, | |
| Recalling love’s most tender ties, | 20 |
| As softly on the keen, cold air | |
| Their leader’s voice rose calm and clear, | |
| And raised, like prophet’s tone, the hope | |
| That in each heart had found a bier. | |
| |
| Few words of humble, grateful praise, | 25 |
| For guidance, life, and rest, a prayer, | |
| A low “Amen” from quivering lips, | |
| Were all the pomps of service there! | |
| It gave them strength to conquer death; | |
| It made them brave to dare and do; | 30 |
| It kept them faithful to the end, | |
| A band of brothers, tried and true! | |
| |
| Then bless them, souls of Christian men | |
| O’er all the earth who praise and pray; | |
| And bless him most of all, their chief, | 35 |
| Who first in duty led the way,— | |
| Who first upon those regions drear | |
| Of frozen, unknown waters spoke | |
| The name of Christ, whose world-blessed sound | |
| The solitude of silence broke! | 40 |
| |
| Those polar mounts of ice may melt | |
| Beneath the Arctic’s summer skies; | |
| May speed the nations’ hoarded wealth, | |
| And ’neath the tropics ebb and rise; | |
| Yet bear abroad, where’er they flow, | 45 |
| That baptism of the holy Name | |
| They echoed from his voice who died | |
| And left those bergs to spread his fame! | |
| |
