ON THE ATTEMPTS TO DISCOVER THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE.
There are some peculiarities of style in the following performance, which is by no means devoid of eloquence, and which derives a certain interest from the efforts now being made to discover the fate of Sir John Franklin. The author is George Stovin Venables, LL. D., of Jesus College, Cambridge.
THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE.
"And now there came both mist and snow,
And it grew wondrous cold;
And ice, mast high, came floating by,
As green as emerald.
And through the drifts and snowy clifts
Did send a dismal sheen:
Nor shape of men, nor beasts we ken—
The ice was all between—
The ice was here, the ice was there—
The ice was all around:
It crack'd and growl'd, and roar'd and howl'd,
Like noises in a swound."
Coleridge. Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
The secret wonders of the gloomy North bid proud defiance, in their solitude, to man's triumphant daring. Who shall pierce the ancient prison-house where Nature's might, in mightier chains of adamantine frost, lies fettered, since Creation? Who shall live where promontories huge, of pilèd ice, like monstrous fragments of primeval worlds tossed on the surge of Chaos, over the waves rear their triumphant heads, and laugh to scorn the undreaded kinghood of the lordly sea?
A fearful challenge! yet the charmèd spell, which summons man to high discovery, is ever vocal in the outward world, though they alone may hear it, who have hearts responsive to its tone. The gale of spring, breathing sweet balm over the western waters, called forth that gifted old adventurer[10] to seek the perfumes of spice-laden winds, far in the Indian Isles. Yea, there is power in Nature's solemn music. All have heard the sighs of Winter in the middle air, and seen the skirts of his cloud-woven robe lingering upon the misty mountain-top: but years rolled on, ere man might understand the mystic invitation of that call to seek the Monarch in his Arctic home.
At length that call is answered. Daringly yon gallant ship, towards the Polar Star, walks the untrodden pathways of old Ocean, leaving the haunts of man. Even now, the bounds are passed where silently the Boreal Morn[11] folds and unfolds, in swiftest interchange, her silver robe of alternating light over the midnight Heaven. There is a change in every sight and sound. White glaciers clash on the tormented waves, in fierce career waving eternally, and hoary whales, with musical din[12] booming along the deep, breathe forth in giant chorus, wondrously, the welcome of the Spirit of the North.
Joy to the brave! That old phantasmal veil which checked the view of dim antiquity, shrinks from their eagle glance, while fabled hills and regions of impenetrable ice fade in the blue expanse of mighty bays[13]—now spread the bosom of the expectant sail unto the Eastern breeze, and while the prow furrows the yielding waters, image forth high dreams of lofty hope—the joyous bound of billows gushing between parted shores, where Asia's rocky brow for ever frowns on the opposing continent. And, borne on spirit-plumed wings, let fancy soar far from that sunless clime, to the warm South, where soft skies slumber through the cloudless noon, o'er the gold palaces of fair Cathay.
Why pause ye in mid ocean? Still the sail swells to the voiceful breeze; the high mast bends with hideous creak, and every separate rib in the huge fabric quivers. Yet the ship on the unmoved waters motionless struggles, as one, who in a feverish dream nervelessly fleeing o'er a haunted waste, strives horribly to shun some fiendish shape, with straining sinews, and convulsive gasp, and faint limbs, magic-stricken. There is rest, dismal and dreary, on the silent sea: most dismal quiet: for the viewless might of the keen frost-wind[14] crisps the curling waves, binding their motion with a clankless chain along the far horizon. Fruitlessly the imprisoned vessel writhes, until the gale, lulled in the embrace of evening, leaves its prey, to share the torpor of the lifeless waste, till earth awaken from her half-year's sleep.