The Arctic Queen

by Unknown

Long time Sir John, misled by wicked sprites,
Searched for the Queen! until, by some kind chance,
He wandered through a grotto by the sea,
Where silver pendules from the ceiling hung
And gossip ripples whispered at the door.
Here, on a seat from solid crystal hewn
Sat Oene,—Bertho at her feet,—her hand
Nestled amid the ringlets of his hair,
Like some white dove amid the wav'ring shade;
Her eyes bent softly on his countenance;
The crimson of his fiery southern blood
Burned through the brown of his defiant cheek;
His eyes were downcast, that their sullen fire
Should not too much betray him, as he lay,
A half-tamed lion at his mistress' feet,
Restless, yet yielding to the golden chain.
In a low voice, which, like a pent-up stream,
Chafed at its boundaries, he made reply
To her incessant questions of the world,
Of human life and love, of death, and heaven.

When bold Sir John intruded on the scene
Oene resumed her native haughtiness.

"I've come to plead the cause of a sweet child,
Who, like a wild-bird newly caught and caged,
Within her cell is fretting. Noble Queen,
I'm not an eloquent nor fair young man,
To please a gentle fancy; but my tongue
And mind shall do thy bidding, should there be
Aught which my humble wisdom could expound.
The meanwhile he who now instructs thee, hastes
To ope the prison door and let the bird
Flutter to her true home within his breast."

Scarce were these words with a firm purpose said,
When all the scene was changed. Where erst a Queen,
In shape most loveable, did blushing sit,
A terrible and yet a glorious form
Rose in portentious wrath; her star-crowned head
Paled the chaste lustre of the silvery dome.
It was no shame to him that Bertho fled,
Dismayed, before the anger of her eyes,
For they were awful. Parted from Sir John,
And flying through a dark, unknown ravine,
He lost himself in tangled labyrinths:
Stumbling o'er rocks—only by daring leaps
Saving himself from dropping into chasms
Which opened suddenly across his path.
From tortuous windings underneath the ground,
At length released, he thenceforth knew the way,
And sped across the mountain to the cave
Where Olive pined, weeping despairing tears.
Like a swift arrow through the sunlight shot
He passed athwart its glory, till he reached
Her prison—heard her sudden cry of joy—
Touched the elaborate spring which bound her in,
And freed her, while she gazed in mute surprise.

"Love! look not thus incredulous of hope!
This temple was thy lover's handiwork—
This curious spring he wrought,—and what he did
He can undo. My sweetest! it is I:—
Thy living, breathing Bertho stands before thee!
This happiness, at least, I owe the Queen,
Who, since repentant, may her gift resume,
Should Heaven not grant us now a quick escape.
But once—this once—though death should press me next—
Come to my arms—to thy dear bosom draw me,
So fondly close!—and feed my famished lips
With kisses worth a life of wo to gain!
Nay, pause not to inquire—'tis better thus
To feel the throbbing of thy timid heart,
Than to waste breath in words.—

"How did it come?
I know not: I was tranced in sleep profound,
And when I woke I was my former self.
Queen Oene hoped my gratitude would grow
To love, in time; and I was grateful—would
Have given her everything but what was thine,
And that alone she coveted. Come, sweet!
Fly from this land forlorn:—if miracles
Are still in fashion, one might serve us well.
Cling to my guiding hand; trust all to me;
My soul is so elate I would not flinch
From meeting every imp of this dark land—
The touch of thy soft hand is such a triumph!"

Even while his accents lingered, they were gone
By an obscure and solitary path,
Until they came upon some rough-hewn steps,
Which wandered round and down, interminable.—
A stairway leading to the upper world
For the ascent of gnomes, who dwelt beneath
In those huge tidal caves which underlaid
Old Thug, upheaved from earth in ancient times.
Silent the lovers fled; their locks grew wet
With mildew, and their breath came gaspingly.
A sound of gibbering gnomes, of elfish song—
Mingling high discords with the patient clink
Of instruments of toil—of laughter strange—
Warned them of the wild laborers they must meet.
A moment more, and the pale fugitives
Stood at the bottom of those countless steps,
Peering into the lowest deep of all.
A hell-like spot! and spirits of the doomed
Were scarce more haggard than the clumsy elves
Who here pursued their coarse and perilous toil.

'Tis in these horrible caverns, deep and wide,
Each day the ocean sinks, when, rushing round
With the swift world, he falls into this snare;
From whence with groans, and anger impotent,
He backward struggles to his bed of sand
And lies there panting; while the credulous earth,
Dreaming of love, looks on him with a smile,
Saying—"He pineth for the sweet-faced Moon;"—
Thus had he just receded, when the pair
Stood peering shuddering in, hearing afar
The painful sighs, which shook his savage breast.
The dwarfish elves, with waning lamps in hand,
Creeping like worms along the slimy floor,
Pursued the ebbing tide collecting spoils.
The lovers saw from what exhaustless mines
Were gathered up the overwhelming wealth—
The jewels and the curious costly toys
Which graced Oene and all her splendid court;
For there the sea,—forever wrecking treasures,
Gulping down golden argosies at once—
Leaves them behind him in his angry flight.

"Art thou afraid, my darling?" Bertho asked—
"I'll bear thee safely through this hideous place.
Here Lucifer, I think, must love to linger;
The shrieking of the ocean hath a sound
Like the united wail of hopeless souls;
Here darkness dwells in everlasting sleep;
For these poor, puny lights which wander round,
Scarce make the drowsy lashes of his lids
Tremble o'er his blind eyes;—the heated earth
Gives forth the odors of her burning heart,
In whose incessant fires her vitals wither.
See! where those wretched gnomes are dragging chests,
Banded with iron! most like, is heaped within
The ingots of some drowned West-Indian:
And look! ah heaven! how beautiful and strange,
To see the delicate corpse of this young girl
Like marble petrified, the raven hair
Grown rankly long, trailing around her limbs,
And clinging to her lovely, breathless breast!—
That rude dwarf clutching from her helpless hands
The jewels which some friend or lover gave.
If we had time to give our fancies range,
What a wild story we would make of this!"
Thrilling with pity, Olive hid her eyes.

Twelve hours of desperate flight, and they emerged
From darkness to a dead shore, shrouded white,—
Saw the green ocean rolling, saw the Sun,
Pale, like a wounded God, and weary, hang
Low in the southern sky—saw mountains crowned
With snow and fire—saw motionless cataracts
Hanging like frozen rainbows over chasms—
And icebergs settling downward towards the sun
As if to pierce him with their glist'ning spears.
Remotely, to the North, the Polar Sea
Hung like a roseate cloud along the sky
Fringing with lovely tints the dim horizon,
Holding unseen its island star within.