But haste thee to the frozen throne,
The starry blue domain
Where Winter, monarch dread and lone,
Asserts his iron reign.
Now Europe’s northern cape recedes,
And Iceland’s utmost shore;
The sailor turns his face and heeds
Those viewless forms no more.
For mountains, distant yet, but bright,
Edging the arctic tide,
’Neath spiry flames of dancing light,
At masthead are descried.
For see! in glittering points, the coast
Divides; the mountain chain,
On waves afar in silence tossed,
Trembles athwart the main.
Anon, the mariner looks forth,
And scans with cheerless brow,—
Borne onward by the angry North,
An arctic navy now.
“How shall the good ship Rufus speed?
How live?” the master cried;—
“God send us help in time of need,"—
“Amen!” the crew replied.
Each ice-built crag and snowy cliff
Chases the foaming spray;
And, ’mid those moving Alps, the skiff
Must find her destined way.
Her destined way?—Her destined fate!
Now drops the needful gale;
The waves become a glassy plate;
The bark forbears to sail.
Prisoned of God; by mountains pent,—
Fuel and food consumed;—
Ask not of me the dire event,
Nor why they thus were doomed.
. . . . . . . . . .
Again, borne forth by waves and wind,
Men spread a venturous sail,
’Mid rocks of massy ice to find
The scarce less massy whale.
The optic tube now aids the eye,
And scans the distant sea:
A distant speck they now descry;
A speck—what can it be?