If he hath held thy worship undefiled108
Through all the sins and sorrows of his youth,
Let the Man echo what he heard as Child
From the far hill-tops of melodious Truth,
Leaving on troubled hearts some lingering tone
Sweet with the solace thou hast given his own!
BOOK IX.
ARGUMENT.
Invocation to the North—Winter, Labour, and Necessity, as agents of Civilization—The Polar Seas described—The lonely Ship; its Leader and Crew—Honour due from Song to the Discoverer!—The battle with the Walruses—The crash of the floating Icebergs—The ship ice-locked—Arthur's address to the Norwegian Crew—They abandon the vessel and reach land—The Dove finds the healing herb—Returns to the Ship, which is broken up for log-huts—The winter deepens—The sufferings and torpor of the crew—The effect of Will upon life—Will preserves us from ills our own, not from sympathy with the ills of others—Man in his higher development has a two-fold nature—in his imagination and his feelings—Imagination is lonely, Feeling social—The strange affection between the King and the Dove—The King sets forth to explore the desert; his joy at recognizing the print of human feet—The attack of the Esquimaux—The meeting between Arthur and his friend—The crew are removed to the ice-huts of the Esquimaux—The adventures of Sir Gawaine continued—His imposture in passing himself off as a priest of Freya—He exorcises the winds which the Norwegian hags had tied up in bags—And accompanies the Whalers to the North Seas—The storm—How Gawaine and his hound are saved—He delivers the Pigmies from the Bears, and finally establishes himself in the Settlement of the Esquimaux—Philosophical controversy between Arthur and Gawaine, relative to the Raven—Arthur briefly explains how he came into the Polar Seas in search of the Shield of Thor—Lancelot and Genevra having sailed for Carduel—Gawaine informs Arthur that the Esquimaux have a legend of a Shield guarded by a Dwarf—The first appearance of the Polar Sun above the horizon.
Throned on the dazzling and untrodden height,1
Form'd of the frost-gems ages[1] labour forth
From the blanch'd air,—crown'd with the pomp of light
I' the midst of dark,—stern Father of the North,
Thee I invoke, as, awed, my steps profane
The dumb gates opening on thy death-like reign!
Here did the venturous Ithacan[2] explore,2
Amidst the dusky, wan, Cimmerian waste,
By Ocean's farthest bounds—the spectre shore
Trod by the Dead, and vainly here embraced
The Phantom Mother. Pause, look round, survey
The ghastly realm beyond the shafts of Day.
Magnificent Horror!—How like royal Death3
Broods thy great hush above the seeds of Life!
Under the snow-mass cleaves thine icy breath,
And, with the birth of fairy forests rife,
Blushes the world of white;[3]—the green that glads
The wave, is but the march of myriads;
There, immense, moves uncouth leviathan;4
There, from the hollows of phantasmal isles,
The morse[4] emerging rears the face of man,
There, the huge bear scents, miles on desolate miles,
The basking seal;—and ocean shallower grows,
Where, through its world, a world, the kraken goes.
Father of races, marching at the van5
Of the great league and armament of Thought;—
When Eastern stars grew dim to drooping man,
And waned the antique light Prometheus brought,
The North beheld the new Alcides rise,
Unbind the Titan and relight the skies.