Swift as he spoke, the gallant Northmen sprang36
On the sharp ice,—drew from the frozen blocks
The mangled wreck;—with many a barbèd fang
And twisted cable to the horrent rocks
Moor'd: and then, shouting up the solitude
Their guiding star, the Dove's pale wing, pursued.
Round the dim bases of the glacier peaks,37
They see the silvery Arctic fox at play,
Sure sign of land,—aloft with ghastly shrieks,
Wheel the wan sea-gulls, luring to his prey
The ravening glaucus[9] sudden shooting o'er
The din of wings from the gray gleaming shore.
At length they reach the land,—if land that be38
Which seems so like the frost-piles of the deep,
That where commenced the soil and ceased the sea
Shows dim, as is the bound between the sleep
And waking of some wretch whose palsied brain
Dulls him to ev'n the slow return of pain.
Advancing farther, burst upon the eye39
Patches of green miraculously isled
In the white desert. Oh! the rapture cry
That greeted God, and gladden'd through the wild!
The very sight suffices to restore,
Green Earth—green Earth—the Mother smiles once more!
Blithe from the turf the Dove the blessèd leaves[10]40
That heal the slow plague of the sunless dearth
Bears to each sufferer whom the curse bereaves
Ev'n of all hope, save graves in that dear earth.
Woo'd by the kindly King they taste, to know
How to each ill God plants a cure below.
Long mused the anxious hero, if to dare41
Once more the fearful sea—or from the bark
Shape ragged huts, and wait, slow-lingering there,
Till Eos issuing from the gates of Dark
Unlock the main? dread choice on either hand—
The liquid Acheron, or the Stygian land.
At length, resolved to seize the refuge given,42
Once more he leads the sturdiest of the crew
Back to the wreck—the planks, asunder riven,
And such scant stores as yet the living few
May for new woes sustain, are shoreward borne;
And hasty axes shape the homes forlorn.
Now, every chink closed on the deathful air,43
In the dark cells the weary labourers sleep;
Deaf to the fierce roar of the hungering bear,
And the dull thunders clanging on the deep—
Till on their waking sense the discords peal,
And to the numb hand cleaves unfelt the steel.
What boots long told the tale of life one war44
With the relentless iron Element?
More, day by day, the mounting snows debar
Ev'n search for food,—yet oft the human scent
Lures the wild beast, which, mangling while it dies,
Bursts on the prey, to fall itself the prize!
But as the winter deepens, ev'n the beast45
Shrinks from its breath, and with the loneliness
To Famine leaves the solitary feast.
Suffering halts patient in its last excess.
Closed in each tireless, lightless, foodless cave
Cowers a dumb ghost unconscious of its grave.