His heart and eye were suppliant turned to the ocean's Lord on high, The Borealis lustres were gathering in the sky; From South and North, from East and West, they clus tered o'er the spot Where breathed his last the gallant chief whose grave man seeth not; They marked him die with stedfast gaze, as tho' in heaven there were A passion to behold how he the terrible fate would bear; They watched him thro' the live-long night-these couriers of the sky, Then fled to tell he listening stars how 'twas they saw him die. He sleepeth where old winter's realm no genial air invades, His spirit burneth bright in heaven among the glorious shades Whose God-like doom, on earth it was creation to unfold, Spanning this mighty orb of ours as thro' the sphere it rolled. His name is written on the deep *—the rivers† as they run Will bear it timeward o'er the world, telling what he hath done; The story of his voyage to Death, amid the arctic frosts, Will be told by mourning Mariners on earth's most dis tant coasts. FROM the TRUTH SEEKER. * Hudson's Bay. †The river Hudson. PASSING THE ICEBERGS. A FEARLESS shape of brave device, Our vessel drives through mist and rain, Between the floating fleets of ice The navies of the northern main. The Arctic ventures, blindly hurled Long shattered from its skyey course. These are the buccaneers that fright The middle sea with dream of wrecks, And freeze the south winds in their flight, And chain the Gulf-stream to their decks. At every dragon prow and helm There stands some viking as of yore; Grim heroes from the boreal realm And oft beneath the sun and moon Their swift and eager falchions glowWhile like a storm-vexed wind, the rune Comes chafing through some beard of snow. And when the far north flashes up With fires of mingled red and gold, They know that many a blazing cup Is brimming to the absent bold. Up signal then, and let us hail Yon looming phantom as we pass ! Note all her fashion, hull, and sail, Within the compass of your glass. See at her mast the stedfast glow And speak her well; for she might say, Might tell of channels yet untold, That sweep the pole from sea to sea; Of lands which God designs to hold A mighty people yet to be. Of wonders which alone prevail How, haply, at some glorious goal, His anchor holds—his sails are furled; That fame has named him on her scroll, "Columbus of the Polar World." Or how his ploughing barks wedge on Through splintered fields, with battered shares, Lit only by that spectral dawn, The mask that mocking darkness wears; Or how, o'er embers black and few, The last of shivered masts and spars, He sits amid his frozen crew In council with the Norland stars. No answer but the sullen flow Of ocean heaving long and vast; An argosy of ice and snow, The voiceless North swings proudly past. THOMAS B. READ. SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT. SOUTHWARD with fleet of ice Sailed the Corsair Death: Wild and fast blew the blast, And the east wind was his breath. His lordly ships of ice Glistened in the sun; On each side, like pennons wide, His sails of white sea mist Dripped with silver rain; But where he passed there were cast Eastward from Campobello Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailed; Three days or more seaward he bore, Then, alas! the land-wind failed. Alas! the land-wind failed, And ice-cold grew the night : And never more, on sea or shore, Should Sir Humphrey see the light. He sat upon the deck, The Book was in his hand; "Do not fear! Heaven is as near," He said, "by water as by land!" In the first watch of the night, Out of the sea mysteriously The fleet of Death rose all around. The moon and the evening star Were hanging in the shrouds; Every mast as it passed, Seemed to rake the passing clouds. They grappled with their prize, As of a rock was the shock : Heavily the ground-swell rolled. Southward through day and dark, |