"Oh! when shall I see my orphan child?
My Mary waits for me."
"Oh! when shall I see my old mother,
And pray at her trembling knee?"
"Be still, be still, my brave sailors!
Think not such thoughts again."
But a tear froze slowly on his cheek;
He thought of Lady Jane.
Ah! bitter, bitter grows the cold,
The ice grows more and more;
More settled stare the wolf and bear,
More patient than before.
"Oh! think you, good Sir John Franklin,
We'll ever see the land?
'Twas cruel to send us here to starve,
Without a helping hand.
"'Twas cruel, Sir John, to send us here,
So far from help and home,
To starve and freeze on this lonely sea:
I ween, the Lord of the Admiralty
Would rather send than come."
"Oh! whether we starve to death alone,
Or sail to our own country,
We have done what man has never done—
The truth is found, the secret won—
We passed the Northern Sea!"
PHADRIG CROHOORE.
BY JAMES SHERIDAN LE FANU.
Oh, Phadrig Crohoore was a broth of a boy,
And he stood six feet eight;
And his arm was as round as another man's thigh,—
'Tis Phadrig was great.
His hair was as black as the shadows of night,
And it hung over scars got in many a fight.
And his voice, like the thunder, was deep, strong, and loud,
And his eye flashed like lightning from under a cloud,—
And there wasn't a girl from thirty-five under,
Sorra matter how cross, but he could come round her;
But of all whom he smiled on so sweetly, but one
Was the girl of his heart, and he loved her alone.
As warm as the sun, as the rock firm and sure,
Was the love of the heart of young Phadrig Crohoore.
He would die for a smile from his Kathleen O'Brien,
For his love, like his hatred, was strong as a lion.