| |
| A WEIRD and awful sea, its surges roll | |
| In solitude, and unexplored expand | |
| From age to age around the Arctic pole, | |
| And beat with hollow roar a frozen land, | |
| Whose adamantine crags behold no sail | 5 |
| Reel on that howling ocean to the northern gale. | |
| |
| No ancient capitals its shores adorn, | |
| With domes and pinnacles glancing royal gold; | |
| But on its wonderful, untrodden bourn | |
| Rise battlements of ice, whose turrets, old | 10 |
| As the creation’s dawn, forever gleam | |
| Like orient pearl beneath the North’s auroral beam. | |
| |
| No treasures delved by slaves in cavern gloom | |
| Lie buried underneath its hoary wave; | |
| Its wildest tempests never knolled the doom | 15 |
| Of wretches sinking to a watery grave. | |
| Resounds not there the combat’s baleful trump, | |
| Nor battle smoke enshrouds its midnight’s starry pomp. | |
| |
| The same as when the choral stars sang forth | |
| Their jubilee throughout the eternal arc, | 20 |
| Still heaves the desolate ocean of the North; | |
| Still o’er its waters broods primeval dark, | |
| Mysterious twilight throbbing with the chime | |
| Of constellations ringing out the march of Time. | |
| |
| Perchance the hero of the British isle, | 25 |
| Much wept, much sought for, slumbers on that coast, | |
| His faithful comrades by his side; the while | |
| For noble hearts that perished at their post | |
| The dreary winds sweep o’er the angry surge, | |
| And with a melancholy music chant their dirge. | 30 |
| |
| Ay, what a sepulchre for hero’s head! | |
| The stars, undying links, light up his tomb, | |
| Majestic bergs, like angels, watch the dead, | |
| And ever upwards through the polar gloom | |
| Most solemn and sublime the wild wind rolls | 35 |
| The grand cathedral hymn for the departed souls. | |
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