What tale of peril and self-sacrifice, Prisoned amid the fastnesses of ice, With hunger howling o’er the wastes of snow; Night lengthening into months; the ravenous floe Crunching the massive ships, as the white bear Crunches his prey. The insufficient share Of loathsome food; The lethargy of famine; the despair Urging to labor, nervelessly pursued; Toil done with skinny arms, and faces hued Like pallid masks, while dolefully behind Glimmered the fading embers of a mind!
That awful hour, when through the prostrate band Delirium stalked, laying his burning hand Upon the ghastly foreheads of the crew; The whispers of rebellion, faint and few At first, but deepening ever till they grew Into black thoughts of murder: such the throng Of horrors bound the hero. High the song Should be that hymns the noble part he played! Sinking himself, yet ministering aid To all around him. By a mighty will Living defiant of the wants that kill, Because his death would seal his comrades’ fate; Cheering, with ceaseless and inventive skill, Those Polar waters, dark and desolate. Equal to every trial, every fate, He stands, until spring, tardy with relief, Unlocks the icy gate, And the pale prisoners thread the world once more, To the steep cliffs of Greenland’s pastoral shore, Bearing their dying chief.
Time was when he should gain his spurs of gold From royal hands, who wooed the knightly state. The knell of old formalities is tolled, And the world’s knights are now self-consecrate. No grander episode doth chivalry hold In all its annals, back to Charlemagne, Than that lone vigil of unceasing pain, Faithfully kept through hunger and through cold, By the good Christian knight, Elisha Kane!
