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 GREENLAND, 
 
 AMD 
 
 OTHER POEMS.
 
 GREENLAND, 
 
 AND 
 
 OTHER POEMS. 
 
 By JAMES MONTGOMERY. 
 
 " Ofi var ek dasa, dur ek dro thik." 
 " Oft was I weary when I drew thee. 
 
 Page 68. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 Printed l>y Strahan and Spottiswoode, Printers-Street j 
 FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN, 
 
 PATERNOSTER-ROW. 
 1819.
 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 In the leading Poem of this Collection, the 
 Author frankly acknowledges that he has so 
 far failed, as to be under the necessity of 
 sending it forth incomplete, or suppressing it 
 altogether. Why he has not done the latter 
 is of little importance to the Public, which 
 will assuredly award him no more credit than 
 his performance, taken as it is, can com- 
 mand ; while the consequences of his temerity, 
 or his misfortune, must remain wholly with 
 
 himself. 
 
 aS
 
 vi PREFACE. 
 
 The original plan was intended to embrace 
 the most prominent events in the annals of 
 ancient and modern Greenland ; — incidental 
 descriptions of whatever is sublime or pic- 
 turesque in the seasons and scenery, or peculiar 
 in the superstitions, manners, and character 
 of the natives; — with a rapid retrospect of 
 that moral revolution, which the gospel has 
 wrought among these people, by reclaiming 
 them, almost universally, from idolatry and 
 barbarism. 
 
 Of that part of the projected Poem which is 
 here exhibited, the first three Cantos contain a 
 sketch of the history of the ancient Moravian 
 Church, the origin of the missions by that 
 people to Greenland, and the voyage of the 
 first three brethren who went thither in 1733.
 
 PREFACE. vii 
 
 The fourth Canto refers principally to traditions 
 concerning the Norwegian colonies, which are 
 said to have existed on both shores of Green- 
 land, from the tenth to the fifteenth centuries. 
 In the fifth Canto the Author has attempted, in 
 a series of episodes, to sum up and exemphfy 
 the chief causes of the extinction of those colo- 
 nies, and the abandonment of Greenland, for 
 several centuries, by European voyagers. 
 Although this Canto is entirely a work of ima- 
 gination, the fiction has not been adopted 
 merely as a substitute for lost facts, but as a 
 vehicle for illustrating many of the most splendid 
 and striking phenomena of the climate, for 
 which a more appropriate place might not have 
 been found, even if the Poem had been carried 
 on to a successful conclusion. But having 
 proceeded thus far, personal circumstances, and
 
 viii PREFACE. 
 
 considerations which it would be impertinent to 
 particularize here, compelled the Author to 
 relinquish his enterprize. Whether he may 
 ever have courage or opportunity to resume it, 
 must depend on contingencies utterly beyond 
 his power. 
 
 The principal subjects introduced in the 
 course of the Poem, will be found in Crantz's 
 Histories of the Brethren and of Greenland, or 
 in Risler's Select Narratives, extracted from the 
 records of the ancient Unitas Fratrum, or 
 United Brethren. To the accounts of Iceland, 
 by various travellers, the Author is also much 
 indebted. 
 
 Among the minor pieces that complete the 
 present volume, a few will be found of a more
 
 PREFACE. ix 
 
 religious character than compositions, which aim 
 at the honours of poetry, generally assume. 
 Though these may not be acceptable to all 
 readers, no apology can be necessary for their 
 insertion ; and the writer ventures to cast them, 
 with their companions, upon the liberality of 
 that Public, whose final judgement will be 
 unerring and irreversible. 
 
 Sheffield, March 27, 1819.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Greenland : Page 
 
 Canto I , 1 
 
 Canto II 23 
 
 Canto III 43 
 
 . Canto IV ^1 
 
 Canto V 89 
 
 Appendix to Greenland 127 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 Hope 149 
 
 A Mother's Love 153 
 
 The Time-piece 158 
 
 Stanzas to the Memory of the Rev. T. Spencer 1 62 
 
 Israel in Captivity 167 
 
 Human Life 169 
 
 The Christian Israel 171 
 
 The Visible Creation 174
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 Sonnet 1 77 
 
 Sonnet 178 
 
 Sonnet: — The Crucifixion 179 
 
 Christ's Passion 181 
 
 Christ's Triumph 183 
 
 Saints in Heaven 185 
 
 The Bible 187 
 
 Instruction 189 
 
 The Christian Soldier 191 
 
 On the Royal Infant 194 
 
 A Midnight Thought 196 
 
 A Night in a Stage-Coach 197 
 
 The Reign of Spring 203 
 
 The Reign of Summer 209 
 
 Incognita 226 
 
 The Little Cloud 233 
 
 To Britain 243
 
 GREENLAND. 
 
 CANTO I. 
 
 The three first Moravian Missionaries are represented 
 as on their Voyage to Greenland, in the year 1733. — 
 Sketch of the descent, establishment, persecutions, 
 extinction and revival of the Church of the United 
 Brethren from the tenth to the beginning of the 
 eighteenth century. — The origin of their Missions to 
 the West Indies and to Greejiland. 
 
 1 HE moon is watching in the sky ; the stars 
 Are swiftly wheeling on their golden cars ; 
 Ocean, outstretcht with infinite expanse, 
 Serenely slumbers in a glorious trance; 
 The tide, o'er which no troubling spirits breathe. 
 Reflects a cloudless firmament beneath ; 
 Where, poised as in the centre of a sphere^ 
 A ship above and ship below appear ;
 
 2 GREENLAND. canto i. 
 
 A double image, pictured on the deep. 
 
 The vessel o'er its shadow seems to sleep ; 
 
 Yet, like the host of heaven, that never rest, 
 
 With evanescent motion to the west, 
 
 The pageant glides through loneliness and night, 
 
 And leaves behind a rippling wake of light. 
 
 Hark ! through the calm and silence of the scene, 
 Slow, solemn, sweet, with many a pause between. 
 Celestial music swells along the air ! 
 — No; — 'tis the evening hymn of praise and prayer 
 From yonder deck ; where, on the stem retired, 
 Thi'ee humble voyagers, with looks inspired. 
 And hearts enkindled with a holier flame 
 Than ever lit to empire or to fame. 
 Devoutly stand : — their choral accents rise 
 On wings of harmony beyond the skies ; ' 
 And 'midst the songs, that Seraph-Minstrels sing, 
 Day without night, to their immortal King, 
 These simple strains, — which erst Bohemian hills 
 Echoed to pathless woods and desert rills ;
 
 CANTO I. GREENLAND. 3 
 
 Now heard from Shetland's azure bound, —»are 
 
 known 
 In heaven ; and He, who sits upon the throne 
 In human form, with mediatorial power, 
 Remembers Calvary, and hails the hour. 
 When, by the* Almighty Father's high decree, 
 The utmost north to Him shall bow the knee. 
 And, won by love, an untamed rebel-race 
 Kiss the victorious Sceptre of His grace. 
 Then to His eye, whose instant glance pervades 
 Heaven's heights, Earth's circle. Hell's profoundest 
 
 shades. 
 Is there a groupe more lovely than those three 
 Night- watching Pilgrims on the lonely sea? 
 Or to His ear, that gathers in one sound 
 The voices of adoring worlds around. 
 Comes there a breath of more delightful praise 
 Than the faint notes his poor disciples raise. 
 Ere on the treacherous main they sink to rest, 
 Secure as leaning on their Master's breast ? 
 
 b2
 
 4 GREENLAND. canto i. 
 
 They sleep ; but memory wakes ; and dreams array 
 Night in a lively masquerade of day ; 
 The land they seek, the land they leave behind. 
 Meet on mid-ocean in the plastic mind ; 
 One brings forsaken home and friends so nigh, 
 That tears in slumber swell the' unconscious eye ; 
 The other opens, with prophetic view. 
 Perils, which e'en their fathers never knew, 
 (Though school'd by suffering, long inured to toil, 
 Outcasts and exiles from their natal soil;) 
 — Strange scenes, strange men ; untold, untried distress ; 
 Pain, hardships, famine, cold, and nakedness. 
 Diseases ; death in every hideous form. 
 On shore, at sea, by fire, by flood, by storm ; 
 Wild beasts and wilder men: — unmoved with fear. 
 Health, comfort, safety, life, they count not dear. 
 May they but hope a Saviour's love to shew. 
 And warn one spirit from eternal woe ; 
 Nor will they faint ; nor can they strive in vain, 
 Since thus — to live is Christ, to die is gain.
 
 CANTO I. GREENLAND. 
 
 'Tis morn : — the bathing moon her lustre shrouds; 
 
 Wide o'er the east impends an arch of clouds, 
 
 That spans the ocean; — while the infant dawn 
 
 Peeps through the portal o'er the liquid lawn, 
 
 That ruffled by an April gale appears, 
 
 Between the gloom and splendour of the spheres, 
 
 Dark-purple as the moorlsnd-heath, when rain 
 
 Hangs in low vapours o'er the' autumnal plain : 
 
 Till the full Sun, resurgent from the flood. 
 
 Looks on the waves, and tiu*ns them into blood ; 
 
 But quickly kindling, as his beams aspire, 
 
 The lambent billows play in forms of fire. 
 
 — Where is the Vessel? — Shining through the light, 
 
 Like the white sea-fowl's horizontal flight. 
 
 Yonder she wings, and skims, and cleaves ber*^By 
 
 Thi'ough refluent foam and iridescent spray. 
 
 Lo ! on the deck, with patriarchal grace. 
 
 Heaven in his bosom opening o'er his face, 
 
 Stands Christian David; — venerable name! 
 
 Bright in the records of celestial fame, 
 
 b3
 
 « GREENLAND. canto i. 
 
 On earth obscure; — like some sequester'd star, 
 That rolls in its Creator's beams afar, 
 Unseen by man ; till telescopic eye, 
 Sounding the blue abysses of the sky, 
 Draws forth its hidden beauty into light. 
 And adds a jewel to the crown of night. 
 Though hoary with the multitude of years, 
 Unshorn of strength, between his young compeers, 
 
 f '-. He towers ; — with faith, whose boundless glance 
 
 J/ 
 
 * can see 
 
 Time's shadows brightening through eternity ; 
 
 Love, — God's own love in his pure breast enshrined ; 
 
 Love, — love to man the magnet of his mind; 
 
 Sublimer schemes maturing in his thought 
 
 Than ever statesman plann'd, or warrior wrought; 
 
 While, with rejoicing tears, and rapturous sighs, 
 
 To heaven ascends their morning sacrifice, (a) 
 
 (a) The names of the three first Moravian Missionaries to 
 Greenland were Christian David, Matthew Stack, and Christian 
 Stack.
 
 CANTO I. GREENLAND. J 
 
 Whence are the pilgrims ? whither would they roam ? 
 Greenland their port ; — Moravia lioas their home. 
 Sprung from a race of martyrs ; men who bore 
 The cross on many a Golgotha, of yore ; 
 When first Sclavonian tribes the truth received, 
 And princes at the price of thrones believed; (b) 
 — When Waldo, flying from the' apostate west, (c) 
 In German wilds his righteous cause confess'd : 
 
 (b) The Church of the United Brethren (first established 
 under that name about the year 1460) traces its descent from 
 the Sclavonian branch of the Greek Church, which was spread 
 throughout Bohemia and Moravia, as well as the ancient 
 Dalniatia. The Bulgarians were once the most powerful 
 tribe of the Sclavic nations ; and among them the gospel 
 was introduced in the ninth century. See additional Note (A.) 
 in the Appendix. 
 
 (c) With the Waldenses, the Bohemian and Moravian 
 Churches, which never properly submitted to the authority of 
 the Pope, held intimate communion for ages : and from 
 Stephen, the last Bishop of the Waldenses, in 1467, the 
 United Brethren received their episcopacy. Almost imme- 
 diately afterwards, those ancient confessors of the truth were 
 dispersed by a cruel persecution, and Stephen himself suffered 
 martyrdom, being burnt as a heretic at Vienna. 
 
 B 4
 
 8 GREENLAND. cajitq i. 
 
 — When WiCKLiPFE, like a rescuing Angel, found 
 
 The dungeon, where the word of God lay bound, 
 
 Unloosed its chains, and led it by the hand, 
 
 In its own sunshine, through his native land: (d) 
 
 — When Huss, the victim of perfidious foes. 
 
 To heaven upon a fiery chariot rose ; 
 
 And ere he vanish'd, with a prophet's breath. 
 
 Foretold the' immortal triumphs of his death: (e) 
 
 (d) fVickljffe's writings were early translated into the Bohe- 
 mian tongue, and eagerly read by the devout and persecuted 
 people, who never had given up the Bible in their own lan- 
 guage, nor consented to perform their church service in Latin. 
 Archbishop Sbinek, of Prague, ordered the works of Wickliffe 
 to be burnt by the hands of the hangman. He himself could 
 scarcely read 1 
 
 (e) It is well known that John Huss (who might be called 
 a disciple of our PVickliffe), though furnished with a safe- 
 conduct by the emperor Sigismund, was burnt by a decree of 
 the council of Constance. Several sayings, predictive of re- 
 tribution to the priests, and reformation in the Church, are 
 recorded, as being uttered by him in his last hours. Among 
 others ; — " A hundred years hence,'' said he, addressing his 
 judges, " ye shall render an account of your doings to God 
 and to me." — Luther appeared at the period thus indicated.
 
 CANTO I. GREENLAND. 
 
 — When ZiSKA, burning with fanatic zeal, 
 Exchanged the Spirit's sword for patriot steel, 
 And through the heart of Austria's thick array 
 To Tabor's summit stabb'd resistless way ; 
 But there, (as if transfigured on the spot 
 The world's Redeemer stood^) his rage forgot; 
 Deposed his arms and trophies in the dust, 
 Wept Hke a babe, and placed in God his trust, 
 While prostrate warriors kiss'd the hallow'd ground. 
 And lay, hke slain, in silent ranks around : {/) 
 — When mild Gregorius, in a lowlier field, 
 As brave a witness, as unwont to yield 
 As Ziska's self, with patient footsteps trod 
 A path of suffering, like the Son of God, 
 
 (/) After the martyrdom of John Huss, his followers ahd ' 
 countrymen took up arms for the maintenance of their civil 
 and religious liberties. The first and most distinguished of 
 their leaders was John Ziska. He seized possession of a high 
 mountain, which he fortified, and called Tabor. Here he and 
 his people (who were hence called Taborites) worshipped God 
 according to their consciences and his holy word ; while in 
 the plains they fought and conquered their persecutors and 
 enemies.
 
 10 _ GREENLAND. canto i. 
 
 And nobler palms^ oy meek endurance, won, 
 
 Than if his sword had blazed from sun to sun \ {g) 
 
 Though nature fail'd him on the racking wheel. 
 
 He felt the joys which parted spirits feel ; 
 
 Rapt into bhss from exstacy of pain, 
 
 Imagination wander'd o'er a plain : 
 
 Fair in the midst, beneath a morning sky, 
 
 A Tree its ample branches bore on high, 
 
 With fragi'ant bloom, and fruit delicious hung. 
 
 While birds beneath the foliage fed and sung; 
 
 All glittering to the sun with diamond dew. 
 
 O'er sheep and kine a breezy shade it threw ; 
 
 A lovely boy, the child of hope and prayer. 
 
 With crook and shepherd's pipe, was watching there ; 
 
 At hand three venerable forms were seen. 
 
 In simple garb, with apostolic mien. 
 
 Who mark'd the distant fields convulsed with strife, 
 
 — The guardian Cherubs of that Tree of Life ; 
 
 (g) See TStote (B.) in the Appendix, for a brief account of 
 this Gregory, and an illustration of the lines that follow con- 
 cerning his trance and vision while he lay upon the rack.
 
 CANTO I. GREENLAND. 11 
 
 Not arm'd like Eden's host, with flaming brands, 
 Alike to friends and foes they stretch'd their hands^ 
 In sign of peace ; and while Destruction spread 
 His path with carnage, welcomed all who fled : 
 — When poor Comenius, with his little flock. 
 Escaped the wolves, and from the boundary rock, 
 Cast o^er Moravian hills a look of woe, 
 Saw the green vales expand, the waters flow, 
 And happier years revolving in his mind, 
 Caught every soimd that murmur'd on the wind ; 
 As if his eye covdd never thence depart. 
 As if his ear were seated in his heart. 
 And his full soul would thence a passage break. 
 To leave the body, for his country's sake ; 
 While on his knees he pour'd the fervent prayer. 
 That God would make that martyr-land his care. 
 And nourish in its ravaged soil a root 
 Of Gregor's Tree, to bear perennial fruit, {h) 
 
 {h) John Amos Comenius, one of the most learned as well 
 as pious men of his age, was minister of the Brethren's con-
 
 12 GREENLAND. canto i. 
 
 His prayer was heard: — that Church, through ages 
 past, 
 Assail'd and rent by persecution's blast ; 
 Whose sons no yoke could crush, no burthen tire, 
 Unawed by dungeons, tortures, sword, and fire, 
 (Less proof against the world's alluring wiles. 
 Whose frowns have weaker terrors than its smiles ;) 
 — That Church o'erthrown, dispersed, unpeopled, dead. 
 Oft from the dust of ruin raised her head, 
 And rallying round her feet, as from their graves, 
 Her exiled orphans, hid in forest-caves ; 
 Where, midst the fastnesses of rocks and glens. 
 Banded like robbers, stealing from their dens, 
 
 gregation at Fulneck, in Moravia, from 1618 to 1627, when 
 the Protestant nobility and clergy being expatriated, he fled 
 with a ^art of his people through Silesia into Poland. On 
 the summit of the mountains forming the boundary, he 
 turned his sorrowful eyes towards Bohemia and Moravia, 
 and kneeling down with his brethren there, implored God, 
 with many tears, that He would not take away the light of 
 his holy word from those two provinces, but preserve in 
 them a remnant for Himself. A remnant was saved. See 
 Appendix, Note (C.)
 
 CANTO I. GREENLAND. 13 
 
 By night they met, their holiest vows to pay. 
 
 As if their deeds were dark, and shimn'd the day ; 
 
 While Christ's revilers, in his seamless robe, 
 
 And parted garments, flaunted round the globe ; 
 
 From east to west while priestcraft's banners flew, i)A 
 
 And harness'd kings his iron chariot drew : 
 
 — That Church advanced, triumphant, o'er the ground. 
 
 Where all her conquering martyrs had been crown'd, 
 
 Fearless her foe's whole malice to defy. 
 
 And worship God in liberty, — or die : 
 
 For truth and conscience oft she pour'd her blood, 
 
 And firmest in the fiercest conflicts stood. 
 
 Wresting fi'om bigotry the proud controul 
 
 Claim'd o'er the sacred empire of the soul, 
 
 Where God, the judge of all, should fill the throne. 
 
 And reign, as. in his universe, alone. ( i ) 
 
 'Twas thus through centuries she rose and fell; 
 At length victorious seem'd the gates of hell; 
 
 (i) See Note (D.) in the Appendix.
 
 14 GREENLAND. canto i. 
 
 But founded on a rock, which cannot move — 
 
 The' eternal rock of her Redeemer's love — 
 
 That Church, which Satan's legions thought destroy'd, 
 
 Her name extinct, her place for ever void, 
 
 Alive once more, respired her native air, 
 
 But found no freedom for the voice of prayer : 
 
 Again the cowl'd oppressor clank'd his chains, 
 
 Flourish'd his scourge, and threaten'd bonds and pains, 
 
 (His arm enfeebled could no longer kill, 
 
 But in his heart he was a murderer still :) 
 
 Then Christian David, strengthen'd from above. 
 
 Wise as the serpent, harmless as the dove; 
 
 Bold as a lion on his Master's part. 
 
 In zeal a seraph, and a child in heart; 
 
 Pluck'd from the gripe of antiquated laws, 
 
 ( — Even as a mother, from the felon-jaws 
 
 Of a lean wolf, that bears her babe away, 
 
 With courage beyond nature, rends the prey,) 
 
 The little remnant of that ancient race : 
 
 — Far in Lusatian woods they found a place ;
 
 CANTO I. GREENLAND. 15 
 
 There, — where the sparrow builds her busy nest, 
 And the clime-changing swallow loves to rest, 
 Thine altar, God of Hosts ! — there still appear 
 The tribes to worship, unassail'd by fear ; 
 Not like their fathers, vex'd from age to age 
 By blatant Bigotry's insensate rage. 
 Abroad in every place, — in every hour 
 Awake, alert, and ramping to devour. 
 No; peaceful as the spot where Jacob slept, 
 And guard all night the journeying angels kept, 
 Herrnhut yet stands amidst her shelter'd bow^s ; 
 — The Lord hath set his watch upon her towers, {j ) 
 
 (7 ) In 1721, (ninety-four years after the flight of Qomeniu&) 
 the Church of the United Brethren was revived by the per- 
 secuted refugees from Moravia (descendants of the old con- 
 fessors of that name), who were led from time to time by 
 Christian DavUi, (himself a Moravian, but educated in the 
 Lutheran persuasion,) to settle on an uncultivated piece of 
 land, on an estate belonging to Count Zinzendorf, in Lu- 
 satia. Christian David, who was a carpenter, began the 
 work of building a church in this wilderness, by striking 
 his axe into a tree, and exclaiming — " Here hath the
 
 16 GREENLAND. canto i. 
 
 Soon, homes of humble form, and structure rude, 
 Raised sweet society in sohtude : 
 And the lorn traveller there, at fall of night. 
 Could trace from distant hills the spangled light. 
 Which now from many a cottage window stream'd, 
 Or in full glory round the chapel beam'd ; 
 While hymning voices, in the silent shade, 
 Music of all his soul's affections made : 
 Where through the trackless wilderness erewhile, 
 No hospitable ray was known to smile ; 
 Or if a sudden splendor kindled joy, 
 'Twas but a meteor dazzling to destroy : 
 While the wood echoed to the hollow owl. 
 The fox's cry, or wolf's lugubrious howl. 
 
 Unwearied as the camel, day by day, 
 Tracks through unwater'd wilds his doleful way, 
 
 sparrow found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself; 
 even thine altars, Lord God of Hosts /" They named the 
 settlement Herrnhut, or The Lord's Watch. See Appendix, 
 Note (E.)
 
 CANTO I. GREENLAND. 17 
 
 Yet in his breast a cherish'd draught retains^aai ni',. ' V 
 
 To cool the fervid current in his veins, 
 
 While from the sun's meridian realms he brings 
 
 The gold and gems of Ethiopian Kings : 
 
 So Christian David, spending yet unspent, // 
 
 On many a pilgrimage of mercy went ; 
 
 Through all their haunts his suffering brethren sought. 
 
 And safely to that land of promise brought ; 
 
 While in his bosom, on the toilsome road, 
 
 A secret well of consolation flow'd. 
 
 Fed from the fountain near the' eternal throne, 
 
 — Bliss to the world unyielded and unknown. 
 
 In stillness thus the little Zion rose ; 
 But scarcely found those fugitives repose. 
 Ere to the west with pitying eyes they turn'd ; 
 Their love to Christ beyond the' Atlantic burn'd. 
 Forth sped their messengers, content to be 
 Captives themselves, to cheer captivity; 
 Soothe the poor Negro with fraternal smiles, 
 And preach deliverance in those prison-isles, 
 
 c
 
 18 GREENLAND. canto i. 
 
 Where man's most hateful forms of being meet, 
 — The tyrant and the slave that licks his feet, (k) 
 O'er Greenland next two youths in secret wept : 
 And where the sabbath of the dead was kept, 
 With pious forethought, while their hands prepare 
 Beds, which the living and unborn shall share, 
 (For man so surely to the dust is brought. 
 His grave before his cradle may be wrought,) 
 They told their purpose, each o'erjoy'd to find 
 His own idea in his brother's mind. 
 For counsel in simplicity they pray'd, 
 And vows of ardent consecration made : 
 
 (k) In 1732, when the congregation at Herrnhut consisted 
 of about six hundred persons, including children, the two first 
 missionaries sailed for the Danish island of St. Thomas, to 
 preach the gospel to the negroes ; and such was their devo- 
 tion to the good work, that being told that they could not 
 have intercourse otherwise with the objects of their Christian 
 compassion, they determined to sell themselves for slaves on 
 their arrival, and work with the blacks in the plantations. 
 But this sacrifice was not required. Many thousand negroes 
 have since been truly converted in the West Indies.
 
 CANTO I. GREENLAND. 19 
 
 —Vows heard in heaven ; from that accepted hour, 
 
 Their souls were clothed with confidence and power, (/) 
 
 Nor hope deferr'd could quell their hearts' desire j 
 
 The bush once kindled grew amidst the fire ; 
 
 But ere its shoots a tree of life became, 
 
 Congenial spirits caught the' electric flame ; 
 
 And for that holy service, young and old, 
 
 Their plighted faith and willing names enroU'd ; 
 
 Eager to change the rest, so lately found, ' "' - 
 
 For life-long labours on barbarian ground ; 
 
 To break, through barriers of eternal ice, 
 
 A vista to the gates of Paradise ; -^^ oiuii ' 
 
 ( I ) Matthew Stack and Frederick Boenisch, two young men 
 being at work together, preparing a piece of ground for a 
 burial-place at Herrnhut, disclosed to each other their distinct 
 desires to offer themselves to the congregation, as missionaries 
 to Greenland, They therefore became joint candidates. Con- 
 siderable delay, however, occurred ; and when it was at length 
 determined to attempt the preaching of the gospel there, 
 Frederick Boenisch being on a distant journey. Christian David 
 was appointed to conduct thither Matthew Stack and his 
 cousin, Christian Stack, who sailed from Copenhagen on the 
 10th of April 1733, and landed in Ball's River on the 20th of 
 May following. 
 
 c 2
 
 20 GREENLAND. canto i. 
 
 And light beneath the shadow of the pole 
 The tenfold darkness of the human soul ; 
 To man, — a task more hopeless than to bless 
 With Indian fruits that arctic wilderness ; 
 With God, — as possible when unbegun 
 As though the destined miracle were done. 
 
 Three chosen candidates at length went forth, 
 Heralds of mercy to the frozen north ; 
 Like marijiers with seal'd instructions sent, 
 They went in faith, (as childless Abram went 
 To dwell by sufferance in a land, decreed 
 The future birthright of his promised seed :) 
 Unknowing whither; — unenquiring why 
 Their lot was cast beneath so strange a sky. 
 Where cloud nor star appear'd, to mortal sense 
 Pointing the hidden path of Providence, 
 And all around was darkness to be felt; 
 — Yet in that darkness light eternal dwelt : 
 They knew, — and 'twas enough for them to know, 
 The still small voice that whisper'd them to go;
 
 CANTO I. GREENLAND. 21 
 
 For He, who spake by that mysterious voice, 
 Inspired their will, and made His call their choice. 
 
 See the swift vessel boimding o'er the tide, 
 That wafts, with Christian David for their guide, 
 Two young Apostles on their joyful way 
 To regions in the twilight verge of day; 
 Freely they quit the clime that gave them birth. 
 Home, kindred, friendship, all they loved on earth ; 
 What things were gain before, accounting loss. 
 And glorying in the shame, they bear the cross ; 
 — Not as the Spaniard, on his flag unfurl'd, 
 A bloody omen through a Pagan world : 
 — Not the vain image, which the Devotee 
 Clasps as the God of his idolatry ; 
 But in their hearts, to Greenland's western shore. 
 That dear memorial of their Lord they bore. 
 Amidst the wilderness to lift the sign 
 Of wrath appeased by sacrifice divine; 
 And bid a serpent-stung and dying race 
 Look on their Healer, and be saved by grace. 
 
 C8
 
 'tfft '3<?H 
 
 .d* ^oV[~ 

 
 GREENLAND. 
 
 CANTO U. .feiii.fc 
 
 Hopes and Fears. — The Brethren pursue their Voyage. — 
 A digression on Iceland. 
 
 VV HAT are thine hopes, Humanity ! — thy fears ? 
 Poor voyager, upon this flood of years. 
 Whose tide, untuming, hurries to the sea 
 Of dark unsearchable eternity. 
 The fragile skiffs, in which thy children sail 
 A day, an hom-, a moment, with the gale. 
 Then vanish; — gone like eagles on the wind, 
 Or fish in waves, that yield and close behind ? 
 Thine Hopes, — lost anchors buried in the deep, 
 That rust, through storm and calm, in iron sleep ; 
 
 c 4
 
 24 GREENLAND. canto u. 
 
 Whose cables, loose aloft and fix'd below, 
 Rot with the sea-weed, floating to and fro ! 
 Thy Fears — ^^are wrecks that strew the fatal surge. 
 Whose whirlpools swallow, or whose currents urge 
 Adventurous barks on rocks, that lurk at rest, 
 Where the blue halcyon builds her foam-light nest ; 
 Or strand them on illumined shoals, that gleam 
 Like drifted gold in smnmer's cloudless beam. 
 Thus would thy race, beneath their parent's eye. 
 Live without knowledge, without prospect die. 
 
 But when Religion bids her spirit breathe. 
 And opens bliss above and woe beneath ; 
 When God r^eveals his march through Nature's night, 
 His steps are beauty, and his presence light, 
 His voice is life : — the dead in conscience start ; 
 They feel a new creation in the heart. 
 Ah ! then. Humanity, thy hopes, thy fears. 
 How changed^ how wond'rous ! — On this tide of years. 
 Though the frail barks, in which thine offspring sail 
 Their day, their hour, their moment, with the gale.
 
 CANTO II. GREENLAND. 25 
 
 Must perish ; — shipwreck only sets them free ; 
 
 With joys unmeasured as eternity, udih: ^ 
 
 They ply on seas of glass their golden oars, 
 
 And pluck immortal fruits along the shores ; 
 
 Nor shall their cables fail, their anchors rust, ^'>" •>"''- 
 
 Who wait the resurrection of the justrvj':**-*^*^^^^ ^"i 
 
 Moor'd on the rock of ages, though decay 
 
 Moulder the weak terrestrial frame away. 
 
 The trumpet sounds, — and lo ! wherever spread, 
 
 Earth, air, and ocean render back their dead. 
 
 And souls with bodies, spiritual and divine^ 
 
 In the new heavens, like stars for ever shine. 
 
 These are thine Hopes: — thy Fears what tongue can 
 
 tell? 
 Behold them graven on the gates of Hell : 
 " The wrath of God abideth here : his breath 
 " Kindled the flames : — this is the second death." 
 'Twas Mercy wrote the lines of judgement there ; 
 None who from earth can read them may despair ! 
 Man ! — let the warning strike presumption dumb j — 
 Awake, arise, escape the wrath to come;
 
 36 GREENLAND. canto n. 
 
 No resurrection from that grave shall be ; 
 The worm within is — immortality. 
 
 The terrors of Jehovah, and his grace. 
 The Brethren bear to earth's remotest race. 
 And now, exulting on their swift career, 
 The northern waters narrowing in the rear. 
 They rise upon the' Atlantic flood, that rolls 
 Shoreless and fathomless between the poles. 
 Whose waves the east and western world divide, 
 Then gird the globe with one circumfluent tide ; 
 For mighty Ocean, by whatever name 
 Known to vain man, is every where the same. 
 And deems all regions by his gulphs embraced 
 But vassal tenures of his sovereign waste. 
 Clear shines the sun ; the surge, intensely ,l^a^ , , 
 Assumes by day heaven's own aerial hue ; ' 
 Buoyant and jaeautifiil, as through a sky, ,jj i>a[i>iii^ ^ 
 On balanced wings, behold the vessel flyjyiityj/? ih 
 Invisibly impell'd, as though it felt 
 A soul, within its heart of oak that dwelt.
 
 CANTO II. GREENLAND. 25?- 
 
 Which broke the billows with spontaneous force, )H 
 Ruled the free elements, and chose its course. ? 
 
 Not so : — and yet along the trackless realm, 
 A hand unseen directs the' unconscious helm; 
 The Power that sojourn'd in the cloud by day. 
 And fire by night, on Israel's desert way ; <4<i f>m • / 
 That Power the obedient vessel owns : — His will, 
 Tempest and calm, and death and life fulfil. yu\ > 
 
 Day following day the current smoothly flows ; 
 Labour is but refreshment from repose ; 
 Perils are vanish'd ; every fear resign'd ; 
 Peace walks the waves, Hope carols on the wind ; 
 And Time so sweetly travels o'er the deep. 
 They feel his motion like the fall of sleep 
 On weary limbs, that, stretch'd in stillness, seem 
 To float upon the eddy of a stream^ 
 Then sink, — to wake in some transporting dream. 
 Thus, while the Brethren far in exile roam^ 
 Visions of Greenland shew their future home. 
 — Now a dark speck^ but brightening as it flies, 
 A vagrant sea-fowl glads their eager eyes :
 
 28-. GREENLAND. 
 
 CAKfO II. 
 
 How lovely, from the narrow deck to see 
 The meanest link of nature's family, 
 Which makes us feel, in dreariest solitude, 
 Affinity with all that breathe renew'd ; 
 At once a thousand kind emotions start. 
 And the blood warms and mantles round the heart ! 
 — O'er the ship's lee, the waves in shadow seen. 
 Change from deep indigo to beryl green. 
 And wreaths of frequent weed, that slowly float. 
 Land to the watchful mariner denote : 
 Ere long the pulse beats quicker through his breast. 
 When, like a range of evening clouds at rest, 
 Iceland's grey cliffs and ragged coast he sees. 
 But shuns them, leaning on the southern breeze ; 
 And while they vanish far in distance, tells 
 Of lakes of fire and necromancers' spells. 
 Strange Isle ! a moment to poetic gaze 
 Rise in thy majesty of rocks and bays, 
 Glens, fountains, caves, that seem not things of 
 
 earth, 
 But the wild shapes of some prodigious birth j
 
 CANTO II. GREENLAND. 29 
 
 As if the kraken, monarch of the sea, 
 Wallowing abroad in his immensity, : iiov / 
 
 By polar storms and lightning shafts assail'd, 
 Wedged with ice-mountains, here had fought and 
 
 fail'd ; 
 Perish'd, — and in the petrifying blast. 
 His hulk became an island rooted fast ; ( a ) 
 — Rather, from ocean's dark foundation hurl'd, 
 Thou art a type of his mysterious world. 
 
 (a) The most horrible of fabulous sea-monsters is the 
 kraken or hafgufa, which many of the Norway fishers pretend 
 to have seen in part, but none entire. They say, that when 
 they find a place which is at one time 80 or 1 00 fathoms deep 
 and at another only 20 or 30, and also observe a multitude of 
 fishes, allured by a delicious exhalation which the kraken emits, 
 they conclude that there is one below them. They therefore 
 hasten to secure a large draught of the fry around them ; but 
 as soon as they perceive the soundings to grow shallower, 
 they scud away, and from a safe distance behold him rising, 
 in a chain of ridges and spires, that thicken as they emerge 
 till they resemble the masts of innumerable vessels moored 
 on a rocky coast. He then riots upon the fish that have been 
 stranded and entangled in the forest of spikes upon his back, 
 and having satiated his hunger, phinges into the depths with 
 a violent agitation of the waters. See Crantz's Greenland.
 
 so GREENLAND. canto h. 
 
 Buoy'd on the desolate abyss, to shew ., . 
 
 What wonders of creation hide below. '^^ 
 
 Here Hecla's triple peaks, with meteor lights, 
 Nature's own beacons, cheer hybernal nights : 
 But when the orient flames in red array, 
 Like ghosts the spectral splendours flee the day; 
 Morn at her feet beholds supinely spread 
 The carcase of the old chimera dead, 
 That wont to vomit flames and molten ore, 
 Now cleft asunder to the inmost core ; 
 In smouldering heaps, wide wrecks and cinders strown, 
 Lie like the walls of Sodom overthrown, 
 ( Ere from the face of blushing Nature swept, 
 And where the city stood the Dead Sea slept :) 
 While inaccessible, tradition feigns. 
 To human foot the guarded top remains, 
 Where birds of hideous shape and doleful note. 
 Fate's ministers, in livid vapoiu^ float, {b) 
 
 (6) Hecla is now the ruins of a volcano. The three peaks 
 iire said to be haunted by evil spirits in the shape of birds. 
 The island abounds with volcanic mountains.
 
 CANTO n. GREENLAND. 31 
 
 Far off, amidst the placid sunshine, glow to (in // 
 Mountains with hearts of fire and crests of snow, 
 Whose blacken'd slopes with deep ravines entrench'd. 
 Their thunders silenced, and their lightnings queneh'd, 
 Still the slow heat of spent eruptions breathe, 
 While embryo earthquakes swell their wombs beneath. 
 
 Hark ! from yon cauldron-cave, the battle-sound 
 Of fire and water warring under ground ; 
 Rack'd on the wheels of an ebullient tide, > . .li.'^T 
 
 Here might some spirit, fall'n from bliss, abide. 
 Such fitful wailings of intense despair. 
 Such emanating splendours fill the air. (c) 
 — He comes, he comes ; the' infiiriate Geyser springs 
 Up to the firmament on vapoury wings; 
 
 (c) The Geysers, or boiling fountains, of Iceland, have been 
 so frequently and so happily described, that their phenomena 
 are sufficiently familiar to general readers not to require any 
 particular illustration here. The Great Geyser, according to 
 Dr. Henderson, (the latest traveller who has published an ac- 
 count of Iceland,) is seventy-eight feet in perpendicular 
 depth, and from eight to ten feet in diameter : the mouth is 
 a considerable basin, from which the column of boiling water 
 is ejaculated to various heights ; sometimes exceeding 100 feet.
 
 32 GREENLAND. canto ii 
 
 With breathless awe the mounting glory view ; 
 
 White whirling clouds his steep ascent pursue. 
 
 But lo ! a glimpse I — refulgent to the gale, 
 
 He starts all naked through his riven veil ; 
 
 A fountain-column, terrible and bright, 
 
 A living, breathing, moving form of light : 
 
 From central earth to heaven's meridian thrown, 
 
 The mighty apparition towers alone. 
 
 Rising, as though for ever he could rise. 
 
 Storm and resume his palace in the skies. 
 
 All foam, and turbulence, and wrath below ; 
 
 Around him beams the reconciling bow ; 
 
 ( Signal of peace, whose radiant girdle binds. 
 Till nature's doom, the waters and the winds;) 
 While mist and spray, condensed to sudden dews, 
 The air illumine with celestial hues, 
 As if the bounteous sun were raining down 
 The richest gems of his imperial crown. 
 In vain the spirit wrestles to break free. 
 Foot-bound to fathomless captivity;
 
 CANTO II. GREENLAND. 53 
 
 A power uilseen, by sympathetic spell 
 
 For ever working, — to his flinty cell, 
 
 Recalls him from the ramparts of the spheres; 
 
 He yields, collapses, lessens, disappears ; 
 
 Darkness receives him in her vague abyss, 
 
 Around whose verge light froth and bubbles hiss, 
 
 While the low murmurs of the refluent tide 
 
 Far into subterranean silence glide. 
 
 The eye still gazing down the dread profound. 
 
 When the bent ear hath wholly lost the sound. 
 
 — But is he slain and sepulchred? — Again 
 
 The deathless giant sallies from his den, 
 
 Scales with recruited strength the' etherial walls, 
 
 Struggles afresh for liberty, — and falls. 
 
 Yes, and for liberty the fight renew'd. 
 
 By day, by night, imdaunted, unsubdued, 
 
 He shall maintain, till Iceland's solid base 
 
 Fail, and the mountains vanish from its face. 
 
 And can these fail ? — Of Alpine height and mould 
 Schapta's unshaken battlements behold ;
 
 34 GREENLAND. canto h. 
 
 His throne an hundred hills ; his sun-crown'd head 
 
 Resting on clouds ; his robe of shadow spread 
 
 O'er half the isle ; he pours from either hand 
 
 An unexhausted river through the land, 
 
 On whose fair banks, through valleys warm and green, 
 
 Cattle and flocks, and homes, and spires are seen. 
 
 Here Nature's earthquake-pangs were never felt ; 
 
 Here in repose hath man for ages dwelt ; 
 
 The everlasting mountain seems to say, 
 
 " I am, — -and I shall never pass away." 
 
 Yet fifty winters, and with huge uproar. 
 Thy pride shall perish j — thou shalt be no more ; 
 Amidst chaotic ruins on the plain. 
 Those cliifs, these waters shall be sought in vain \ (d) 
 
 (d) This imaginary prophecy (1733) was fulfilled just fifty 
 years afterwards in 1 783. The Schapta, Schaptka, or Skaftar 
 Yokul and its adjacencies were the subjects of the most tre- 
 mendous volcanic devastation on record. Two rivers were 
 sunk or evaporated, and their channels filled up with lava ; 
 many villages* were utterly destroyed ; and one-fourth part of 
 the island rendered nearly uninhabitable. Famine and pesti- 
 lence followed.
 
 CANTO II. GREENLAND. 3ff 
 
 — Through the dim vista of unfolding years, 
 A pageant of portentous woe appears. *) v-ivi- 
 Yon rosy groupes, with golden locks, at play, 
 I see them, — few, decrepid, silent, grey ; 
 Their fathers all at rest beneath the sod, • 
 Whose flowerless verdure marks the House of God, 
 Home of the living and the dead ; — -where meet 
 Kindred and strangers, iii communion sweet. 
 When dawns the Sabbath on the block-built pile ; 
 The kiss of peace, the welcome, and die smile 
 Go round ; till comes the Priest, a. father there. 
 And the bell knolls his family to prayer : 
 Angels might stoop fi*om thrones in heaven, to be 
 Co-worshippers in such a family. 
 Whom from their nooks and dells, where'er they roam. 
 The Sabbath gathers to their common home. 
 Oh ! I would stand a keeper at this gate 
 Rather than reign with kings in guilty state ; 
 A day in such serene enjoyment spent 
 Were worth an age of splendid discontent ! 
 
 D 2
 
 36 GREENLAND. cANto n. 
 
 — But ti^hither am I hurried from my theme ? 
 Schapta returns on the prophetic dream. 
 
 From eve till morn strange meteors streak the pole; 
 At cloudless noon mysterious thunders roll, 
 As if below both shore and ocean hurl'd 
 From deep convulsions of the nether world. 
 Anon the river, boiling from its bed, 
 Shall leap its bounds and o'er the lowlands spread. 
 Then waste in exhalation, — leaving void 
 As its own channel, utterly destroy'd, 
 Fields, gardens, dwellings, churches and their graves, 
 All wreck'd or disappearing with the waves. 
 The fiigitives that 'scape this instant death 
 Inhale slow pestilence with every breath ; 
 Mephitic steams from Schapta's smouldering breast 
 With livid horror shall the air infest ; 
 And day shall glare so foully on the sight. 
 Darkness were refuge from the curse of light. 
 Lo ! far among the glaciers, wrapt in gloom. 
 The red precursors of approaching doom,
 
 CANTO 11. GREENLAND. 37 
 
 Scatter'd and solitary founts of fire, 
 
 Unlock'd by hands invisible, aspire ; 
 
 Ere long more rapidly than eye can count, 
 
 Above, beneath, they multiply, they moimt, 
 
 Converge, condense, — a crimson phalanx form. 
 
 And rage aloft in one unbounded storm ; 
 
 From heaven's red roof the fierce reflections throw 
 
 A sea of fluctuating light below. 
 
 — Now the whole army of destroyers, fleet 
 
 As whirlwinds, terrible as lightnings, meet ; 
 
 The mountains melt like wax along their course. 
 
 When downward, pouring with resistless force, 
 
 Through the void channel where the river roll'd, 
 
 To ocean's verge their flaming march they hold ; 
 
 While blocks of ice, and crags of granite rent, 
 
 Half-fluid ore, and rugged minerals blent,. 
 
 Float on the gulph, till molten or immersed, 
 
 Or in explosive thunderbolts dispersed. 
 
 Thus shall the Schapta, towering on the brink 
 
 Of unknown jeopardy, in ruin sinkj 
 
 D 9
 
 38 GREENLAND. canto n. 
 
 And this wild paroxysm of frenzy past, •■ •: ^as*^ • 
 
 At her own work shall Nature stand aghast. 
 
 Look on this desolation : — mark yon brow. 
 Once adamant, a cone of ashes now : 
 Here rivers swampt ; there valleys levell'd, plains 
 O'erwhelm'd ; — one black-red wilderness remains, 
 One crust of lava, through whose cinder-heat 
 The pulse of buried streams is felt to beat ; 
 These from the frequent fissures, eddying white. 
 Sublimed to vapour, issue forth like light 
 Amidst the sulphury fumes, that drear and dun 
 Poison the atmosphere and blind the sim. 
 Above, as if the sky had felt the stroke 
 Of that volcano, and consumed to smoke. 
 One cloud appears in heaven, and one alone. 
 Hung round the dark horizon's craggy zone, 
 Forming at once the vast encircling waU, 
 And the dense roof of some Tartarean hall, 
 Propt by a thousand pillars, huge and strange, 
 Fantastic forms that every moment change.
 
 CANTO II. GREENLAND. Sd 
 
 As hissing, surging from the floor beneath, 
 Volumes of steam the' imprison'd waters breathe. 
 Then should the sun, ere evening gloom ascend, 
 Quick from the west the murky curtain rend, 
 And pour the beauty of his beams between 
 These hideous arches, and light up the scene; 
 At the sweet touch of his transforming rays 
 With amber lustre all the columns blaze. 
 And the thick folds of cumbrous fog aloof 
 Change to rich drapery of celestial woof: 
 With such enchantment air and earth were fraught, 
 Beyond the colouring of the wealthiest thought, 
 That Iceland Scalds, transported at the view. 
 Might deem the legends of their fathers true. 
 And here behold, illumining the waste. 
 The palace of immortal Odin placed ; 
 TiU rapt imagination joy'd to hear 
 The neigh of steeds, the clank of armour near. 
 And saw, in barbarous state, the tables spread 
 With shadowy food, and compassed with the dead, 
 
 D 4
 
 40 GREENLAND. canto ii. 
 
 Weary from conflicts, — still the fierce delight 
 
 Of spectre-warriors, in the daily fight : 
 
 Then while they quafF'd the mead from sculls of foes, 
 
 By whu'lwind gusts the din of battle rose ; 
 
 The strife of tongues, the tournament of words 
 
 Following the shock of shields, the clash of swords ; 
 
 Till, gorged and drunken at the' enormous feast. 
 
 Awhile their revels and their clamours ceased; 
 
 Ceased to the eye and ear; — yet where they lay. 
 
 Like sleeping lions, surfeited with prey, 
 
 In tawny groupes recumbent through the den. 
 
 In dreams the heroes drank and fought again. 
 
 Away with such Divinities ! their birth 
 Man's brain-sick superstition, and their mirth 
 Lust^ rapine, cruelty; — their fell employ 
 God's works and their own votaries to destroy. 
 — The Runic Bard to nobler themes shall string 
 His ancient harp, and mightier triumphs sing : 
 For glorious days are risen on Iceland: — clear 
 The gospel-trumpet sounds to every ear,
 
 CANTO II. GREENLAND. 41 
 
 And deep in many a heart the Spirit's voice 
 
 Bids the believing soul in hope rejoice. 
 
 O'er the stem face of this tempestuous isle, 
 
 Though briefly Spring, and Autumn never, smile, 
 
 Truth walks with naked foot the' unyielding snows, 
 
 And the glad desert blossoms like the rose. 
 
 Though earthquakes heave, though torrents drown 
 
 his cot. 
 Volcanoes waste his fields, — the peasant's lot 
 Is blest beyond the destiny of kings : 
 — Lifting his eyes above sublunar things, 
 Like dying Stephen, when he saw in prayer 
 Heaven open'd, and his Saviour beckoning there, 
 He cries, and clasps his Bible to his breast, 
 " Let the earth perish, — here is not my rest." {e) 
 
 (e) One of the finest specimens of Icelandic poetry extant 
 is said to be the " Ode to the British and Foreign Bible Society," 
 composed by the Rev. John Thorlakson, of BcEgisa, the trans- 
 lator of Milton's Paradise Lost into his native tongue. Of 
 this Ode there is a Latin translation by the learned Iceland 
 Professor, Finn Magnusson. A spirited English version has 
 also appeared. Thorlakson is a venerable old man^ and holds 
 church preferment to the amount of six pounds five shillings 
 per annum, out of which he allows a stipend to a curate.
 
 GREENLAND. 
 
 CANTO III. 
 
 The voyage to Greenland concluded. — A fog at sea.-— 
 Ice-fields. — Eclipse of the Sun. — The Greenland fable 
 of Malina and Aninga. — A storm. — The ice-blink.-— 
 Northern lights.'— The Brethren land. 
 
 xlow speed the faithful witnesses, who bore 
 
 The pible and its hopes to Greenland's shore ? 
 
 — Like Nbah's ark, alone upon the wave, 
 
 (Of one lost world the' immeasurable grave,) 
 
 Yonder the ship, a solitary speck. 
 
 Comes bounding from the horizon ; while on deck 
 
 Again imagination rests her wing. 
 
 And smooths her pinions, while the Pilgrims sing
 
 44 . GREENLAND. canto iii. 
 
 Their yesper-oraisons. — The Sun retires, 
 Not as he wont, with clear and golden fires ; 
 Bewilder'd in a labyrinth of haze, 
 His orb redoubled, with discolour'd rays. 
 Struggles and vanishes; — along the deep. 
 With slow array, expanding vapours creep. 
 Whose folds, in twilight's yellow glare uncurl'd. 
 Present the dreams of an unreal world ; 
 Islands in air suspended ; marching ghosts 
 Of armies, shapes of castles, winding coasts, 
 Navies at anchor, mountains, woods, and streams, 
 Where all is strange, and nothing what it seems ; 
 Till deep involving gloom, without a spark 
 Of star, moon, meteor, desolately dark. 
 Seals up the vision : — then, the Pilot's fears* 
 Slacken his arm ; a doubtful course he steers, 
 Till morning comes, but comes not clad in light ; 
 Uprisen day is but a paler night, 
 Revealing not a glimpse of sea or sky ; 
 The ship's circumference bounds the sailor's eye.
 
 CANTO III. GREENLAND. 4& 
 
 So cold and dense the' impervious fog extends, 
 
 He might have touch'd the point where being ends ; 
 
 His bark is all the universe ; so void 
 
 The scene, — as though creation were destroy'd. 
 
 And he and his few mates, of all their race, 
 
 Were here becalm'd in everlasting space, (a) 
 
 Silent and motionless, above, below. 
 The sails all struck, the waves unheard to flow, 
 In this drear blank of utter solitude. 
 Where life stands still, no faithless fears intrude; 
 Through that impervious veil the Brethren see 
 The face of omnipresent Deity : 
 Nor Him alone; — whate'er his hand hath made ; 
 His glory in the firmament display'd ; 
 The sun majestic in his course, and sole ; 
 The moon and stars rejoicing round the pole ; 
 
 (a) The incidents described in this Canto are founded 
 upon the real events of the voyage of the Missionaries, as 
 given in Crantz'a History. See the Appendix, Note ( F.)
 
 46 GREENLAND. canto in. 
 
 Earth o'er its peopled realms and wastes unknown, 
 Clad in the wealth of every varying zonej?--* •:!•, 
 Ocean through all the' enchantment of his forms, 
 From breathing calms to devastating storms ; 
 Heaven in the vision of eternal bliss, 
 Death's terrors, hell's unsearchable abyss ; 
 — Though rapt in secrecy from human eye. 
 These in the mind's profound sensorium lie, 
 And, with their Maker, by a glance of thought, 
 Are in a moment to remembrance brought ; 
 Then most, when most restrain'd the' imperfect sight, 
 God and his works shine forth in his own light. 
 Yet clearest through that veil the Pilgrims trace 
 Their Father's image in their Saviour's face ; 
 A sigh can waft them to his feet in prayer, 
 Not Gabriel bends with more acceptance there. 
 Nor to the throne from heaven's pure altar rise 
 The odours of a sweeter sacrifice, 
 Than when before the mercy-seat they kneel. 
 And tell Him all they fear, or hope, or feel ;
 
 CANTO III. GREENLAND, 47 
 
 Perils widiout, and enemies within, 
 
 Satan, the world, temptation, weakness, sin ; 
 
 Yet rest unshaken on his sure defence, 
 
 Invincible through his omnipotence : 
 
 " Oh ! step by step," they cry, " direct our way. 
 
 And give thy grace, like manna, day by day; 
 
 The store of yesterday will not suffice. 
 
 To-morrow's sun to us may never rise ; 
 
 Safe only, when our souls are staid on Thee ; 
 
 Rich only, when we know our poverty." 
 
 And step by step the Lord those suppliants led ; 
 He gave them daily grace like daily bread ; 
 By sea, on shore, through all their pilgrimage, 
 In rest and labour, to their latest age, ,■ > 
 Sharp though their trials, and their comforts scant, 
 God was their refuge, and they knew not want. 
 
 On rustling pinions, like an unseen bird. 
 Among the yards, a stirring breeze is heard ; 
 The conscious vessel wakes as from a trance. 
 Her colours float, the filling sails advance ;
 
 48 GREENLAND. canto in. 
 
 "White from her prow the murmuring surge recedes : 
 — So the swan, startled from her nest of reeds, 
 Swells into beauty, and with curving chest, 
 Cleaves the blue lake, with motion soft as rest. 
 Light o'er the liquid lawn the pageant glides ; 
 Her helm the well-experienced pilot guides. 
 And while he threads the mist-enveloped maze, 
 Turns to the magnet his enquiring gaze. 
 In whose mute oracle, where'er he steers, 
 The pointing hand of Providence appears ; 
 With this, though months of gloom the main enrobe, 
 His keel might plough a furrow round the globe. 
 
 Again the night ascends without a star : . 
 Low sounds come booming o'er the waves afar. 
 As if conflicting navies shook the flood. 
 With human thunders, in the strife of blood, 
 That slay more victims in one brief campaign. 
 Than heaven's own bolts through centuries have slain. 
 The seaman hearkens; — colour flies his cheek, 
 His stout heart throbs with fears he dare not speak ;
 
 CANTO HI. GREENLAND. 49 
 
 No lightning-splendours streak the' unbroken gloom; 
 — His bark may shoot the gulph beyond the tomb, 
 And he, if e'er it come, may meet a light. 
 Which never yet hath dawn'd on living sight. 
 Fresher and fresher blows the' insurgent gale ; 
 He reefs his tops, he narrows sail by sail, 
 Yet feels the ship with swifter impulse sweep, 
 O'er mightier billows, the recoiling deep ; 
 While still, with doleful omen on his ear. 
 Come the deaf echoes of those sounds of fear. 
 Distant, — yet every volley rolls more near. 
 
 Oh ! intthat agony of thought forlorn, 
 How longs the' impatient mariner for mom ! 
 She wakes, — his eyes are wither'd to behold 
 The scene which her disastrous beams unfold : 
 The fog is vanish'd, but the welkin lowers. 
 Sharp hail descends, and sleet in blinding showers ; 
 Ocean one bed of foam, with fury tost, 
 In undistinguishable whiteness lost. 
 Save where vast fields of ice their surface shew, 
 Buoyant, but many a fathom sunk below : 
 
 }
 
 50 GREENLAND. canto in. 
 
 Changing his station as the fragments pass. 
 Death stands the pilot of each ponderous mass ; 
 Gathering his brow into the darkest frown, 
 He bolts his raft to run the victim down. 
 But shoots astern: — the shock the vessel feei% 
 A moment in the giddy whirlpool reels. 
 Then like an arrow soars, as through the a^r, 
 So high the salient waves their burtiien bea^. 
 
 Quick skirmishes with floating batteries past, 
 Ruin inevitable threats at last : 
 Athwart the north, like ships of battle spread. 
 Winter's flotilla, by their captain led, 
 (Who boasts with these to make his prowess known. 
 And plant his foot beyond the arctic zone,) 
 Islands of ice, so wedged and grappled lies 
 One moving continent appals the eye. 
 And to the ear renews those notes of <loom, 
 That brought portentous warnings through the gloom; 
 For loud and louder, with explosive shodcs, 
 Sudden convulsions split the frost-bound rocks,
 
 CANTO III. GREENLAND. 51 
 
 And launch loose mountains on the frothing, ooze, 
 As pirate-barks, on summer seas to cruise^ 
 In front this perilous array ; — behind, 
 Borne on the surges, driven by the wind, 
 The vessel hurries to the brink of fate ; 
 All efforts fail,— but prayer is not too late : 
 Then, in the imminent and ghastly fall 
 Foul on destruction, — the disciples call 
 On Him, their Master, who, in human form, 
 Slept in the lap of the devouring storm; 
 On Him, who in the midnight watch was seen, 
 Walking the gulph, inefi&,bly serene. 
 At whose rebuke the temp^t ceased to roar, 
 The winds carea'd the waves, the waves the shores 
 On Him they caU; — their prayer, in faith preferr'd. 
 Amidst the frantic hurricane is heard ; 
 He gives the sign, by none in earth or heaven 
 Known, but by him to whom the charge is ^ven, 
 The Angel of the Waters;— he, whose wrath 
 Had hurl'd the vessel on that shipwreck path, 
 
 £ 2
 
 52 GREENLAND. canto hi. 
 
 Becomes a minister of grace; — his breath 
 Blows, — and the enemies are scatter'd, — Death, 
 Reft of his quarry, plmiges through the wave, 
 Buried himself where he had mark'd their grave. 
 The line of battle broken, and the chain 
 Of that armada, which oppress'd the main, 
 Snapt hopelessly asunder, — quickly all 
 The* enormous masses in disruption fall, 
 And the weak vessel, through the chaos wild, 
 Led by the mighty Angel, — as a child, 
 Snatch'd from its crib, and in the mother's arms 
 Borne through a midnight tumult of alarms, — 
 Escapes the wrecks ; nor slackens her career. 
 Till sink the forms, and cease the sounds of fear. 
 And He, who rules the universe at will, 
 Saith to the reinless elements, " Be still." 
 
 Then rise sweet hymns of gratulation ; praise 
 From hearts and voices, in harmonious lays ; — 
 So Israel sang deliverance, when he stood 
 By the Red Sea, and saw the morning-flood.
 
 CAKTO III. GREENLAND. 53 
 
 That in its terrible embraces bore 
 
 The slain pursuers and their spoils on shore. 
 
 Light-breathing gales awhile their course propel, 
 The billows roll with pleasurable swell, 
 Till the seventh dawn ; when o'er the pure expanse 
 The sun, like lightning, throws his earliest glance^ 
 " Land ! Land ! " exclaims the ship-boy from the mast, 
 " Land ! Land ! " with one electric shock hath pass'd 
 From, lip to lip, and every eye hath caught 
 The cheering glimpse so long, so dearly sought; 
 Yet must imagination half supply 
 The doubtful streak, dividing sea and sky ; 
 Nor clearly known, till, in sublimer day. 
 From icy cliffs refracted splendours play, 
 And clouds of sea-fowl high in ether sweep. 
 Or fall like stars through sunshine on the deep. 
 'Tis Greenland ! but so desolately bare. 
 Amphibious life alone inhabits there ; 
 *Tis Greenland ! yet so beautiful the sight, 
 
 The Brethren gaze with imdisturb'd delight : 
 
 E 3
 
 54 GREENLAND. canto hi. 
 
 In silence, (as before the Throne,) they stand, 
 And pray, in prospect of that promised land, 
 That He, who sends them thither, may abide 
 Through the waste howling wilderness their guide ; 
 And the good shepherd seek his straying flocks. 
 Lost on those frozen waves and herbless rocks, 
 By the still waters of his comforts lead. 
 And in the pastures of salvation feed. 
 
 Their faith must yet be tried : — the sun at noon 
 Shrinks from the shadow of the passing moon, 
 Till, ray by ray of all his pomp bereft, 
 (Save one slight ring of quivering lustre left,) 
 Total eclipse involves his peerless eye : 
 Portentous twilight creeps around the sky ; 
 The frighted sea-birds to their haunts repair ; 
 There is a freezing stillness in the air, 
 As if the blood through Nature's veins ran cold, 
 A prodigy so fearful to behold ; 
 A few faint stars gleam through the dread serene. 
 Trembling and pale spectators of the scene ;
 
 CANTO III. GREENLAND. 55 
 
 While the rude mariners, with stem amaze. 
 
 As on some tragic execution gaze, 
 
 When cahn but awful guilt is stretcht to fe^l 
 
 The torturing fire, or dislocating wheel, 
 
 And life, like light from yonder orb, retires. 
 
 Spark after spark, till the whole man expires. 
 
 Yet may the darkened sun and mourning skies 
 
 Point to a higher, hoher sacrifice ; 
 
 The Brethren's thoughts to Calvary's brow ascend. 
 
 Round the Redeemer's Cross their spirits bend. 
 
 And while heaven frowns, earth shudders, graves 
 
 disclose 
 The forms of sleepers, startled from repose. 
 They catch the blessing of his latest breath, 
 Mark his last look, and through the' eclipse of 
 
 death 
 
 See lovelier beams than Tabor's vision shed, 
 
 Wreathe a meek halo round his sacred head. 
 
 To Greenland then, with quick compassion, turn 
 
 Their deepest sympathies ; their bosoms burn, 
 E 4
 
 56 GREENLAND. canto hi 
 
 To her barbarian race, with tongues of flame, 
 His love, his grief, his glory to proclaim. 
 
 O could they view, in this alarming hour, 
 Those wretched ones, themselves beneath the power 
 Of darkness, while the shadow clips the sun ! 
 How to their dens the fierce sea-hunters run, 
 Who death in every shape of peril brave. 
 By storms and monsters, on the faithless wave, 
 But now in speechless horror Ue aghast, 
 Till the malignant prodigy be past : 
 While bolder females, with tormenting spells, 
 Consult their household dogs as oracles. 
 And by the yelping of their curs divine. 
 That still the earth may stand, the sun may shine. 
 Then forth they creep, and to their oflFspring tell 
 Wniiat fate of old a youth and maid befell : {b) 
 
 (6) For the fable of MaliTia and Aninga, (the Sun and the 
 Moon,) see Note G. of the Appendix ; which also explains 
 the allusions here made to the terror of the men, and the 
 courage and spells of the women, during eclipses of the Sun.
 
 CANTO III. GREENLAND. 57 
 
 How, in the age of night, ere day was born 
 
 On the blue hills of undiscover'd mom ; 
 
 Where one pale cresset twinkled through the shade, 
 
 Maun A and her gay companions play'd 
 
 A thousand mimic sports, as children wont; 
 
 They hide, they seek, they shoot, harpoon and hunt ; 
 
 When lo ! Aninga, passionate and young, 
 
 Keen as a wolf, upon his sister sprung. 
 
 And pounced his victim ; — gentler way to woo 
 
 He knew not, or he scorn'd it if he knew : 
 
 Malina snatch'd her lamp, and in the dark 
 
 Dash'd on his felon-front a hideous mark, 
 
 Slipt from his foul embrace, (and laugh'd aloud,) 
 
 Soft as the rainbow melting from the cloud ; 
 
 Then shot to heaven, and in her wondrous flight 
 
 Transform'd her image, sparkled into light. 
 
 Became the sun, and through the firmament. 
 
 Forth in the glory of a goddess went. 
 
 Aninga baffled, madden'd^ unsubdued, 
 
 By her own beams the fugitive pursued,
 
 58 GREENLAND. canto hi. 
 
 And when she set, his broad disfigured mien 
 As the dim moon among the stars was seen ; 
 Thenceforward doom'd his aster's steps to chase, 
 But ne'er o'ertake in heaven's eternal race. 
 Yet when his vanish'd orb might seem to sleep, 
 He takes his monthly pastime on the deep,^ 
 Through storms, o'er cataracts, in his Kayak sails, 
 Strikes with unerring dart the polar whales. 
 Or o'er ice-mountains> in his dog^rawn car. 
 Pursues the rein-deer to the farthest star. 
 But when eclipse his baneful disk invades, 
 He prowls for prey among the Greenland maids. 
 Till roaring drums, belabouring sticks, and cries 
 Repel the errant Demon to the skies. 
 
 The Sim hath cast aside his veil; — he shines 
 With purest i^lendour till his orb declines ; 
 Then landward^ marshalling in black aaray. 
 Eruptive vapours drive him from the day ; 
 And night again, with premature ccmtroul. 
 Binds light in chains of darkness o'er the pole;
 
 CANTO III. GREENLAND. fr9 
 
 Heaven in one ebon mass of horror scowls : 
 
 — Anon a universal whirlwind howls, 
 
 With such precipitation dash'd on high, 7 
 
 Not from one point, but from the whole dark sky. 
 
 The surges at the onset shrink aghast, 
 
 Borne down beneath the paralyzing blast ; 
 
 But soon the mad tornado slants its course. 
 
 And rolls them into mountains by main force, 
 
 Then utterly embroil'd, through clouds and waves, 
 
 As *twixt two oceans met in conflict, raves. 
 
 Now to the passive bark, alternate tost. 
 
 Above, below, both sea and sky are lost, 
 
 All but the giddy summit, where her keel 
 
 Hangs in light balance on the billowy wheel ; 
 
 Then, as the swallow, in his windward flight. 
 
 Quivers the wing, returns, and darts downright. 
 
 She plunges through the blind abyss, and o'er 
 
 Her groaning masts the cavern'd waters roar. 
 
 Ruled by the hurricane, no more the helm 
 
 Obeys the pilot ; — seas on seas o'erwhelm
 
 60 GREENLAND. canto hi. 
 
 The deck ; where oft embattled currents meet, 
 Foam in white whirlpools, flash to spray, retreat, 
 And rock the vessel with their huge turmoils, 
 Like the cork-float aroimd the fisher's toils. 
 Three days of restless agony, that seem 
 Of one delirious night the waking dream, 
 The mariners in vain their labours ply, 
 Or sick at heart in pale despondence lie. 
 The Brethren weak, yet firm as when they faced 
 Winter's ice-legions on his own bleak waste, 
 In patient hope, that utters no complaint. 
 Pray without ceasing ; pray, and never faint ; 
 Assured that He, who from the tempest's neck 
 Hath loosed his grasp, still holds it at his beck. 
 And with a pulse too deep for mortal sense, 
 — The secret pulse of his omnipotence, 
 That beats through every motion of the storm, 
 — Can check destruction in iis wildest form : 
 Bow'd to his will,— their lot how truly blest. 
 Who live to serve Him, and who die to rest !
 
 CANTO III. GREENLAND. 61 
 
 To live and serve KQm is their Lord's decree ; 
 He curbs the wind, he ca|ms the' infuriate sea ; 
 The sea and wind their Maker's yoke obey, 
 And waft his servants on their destined way. 
 Though many a league by that disaster driven 
 'Thwart from their course; with planks and cordage 
 
 riven. 
 With hands disabled, and exhausted strength, 
 The active crew refit their bark at length : 
 Along the placid gulph, with heaving sails, 
 That catch from every point propitious gales. 
 Led like the moon, from infancy to age. 
 Round the wide zodiac of her pilgrimage. 
 Onward and smooth their voyage they pursue. 
 Till Greenland's coast again salutes their view. 
 
 'Tis sunset : to the firmament serene, 
 The' Atlantic wave reflects a gorgeous scene ; 
 Broad in the cloudless west, a belt of gold 
 Girds the blue hemisphere ; above unroll'd. 
 The keen, clear air grows palpable to sight. 
 Embodied in a flush of crimson light.
 
 S3 GREENLAND. 
 
 CANTO III. 
 
 Through which the evening star, with milder gleam. 
 
 Descends to meet her image in the stream. 
 
 Far in the east, what spectacle unknovm 
 
 Allures the eye to gaze on it alone ? 
 
 — Amidst black rocks, that lift on either hand 
 
 Their countless peaks, and mark receding land ; 
 
 Amidst a tortuous labyrinth of seas, 
 
 That shine around the arctic Cyclades ; 
 
 Amidst a coast of dreariest continent, 
 
 In many a shapeless promontory rent ; 
 
 — O'er rocks, seas, islands, promontories spread^ 
 
 The Ice- Blink rears its undulated head ( c ) 
 
 On which the sun, beyond the' horizon shrined. 
 
 Hath left his richest garniture behind ; 
 
 Piled on a hundred arches, ridge by ridge^ 
 
 O'er fix'd and fluid strides the Alpine bridge^ 
 
 (c) The t&pea Ice- Blink is generally applied by our mari- 
 ners to the nocturnal illumination in the heavens, which 
 denotes to them the proximity of ice-mountains. In this 
 place a description is attempted of the most stupendous accu- 
 mulation of ice in the known world, which has been long 
 distinguished by this peculiar name by the Danish navigators.
 
 CANTO III. GREENLAND. 63 
 
 Whose Wocks of sftj^diire seem to mortal eye 
 
 Hewn from cerulean <ju^rie&. of the sky ; 
 
 With glacier-battlements, that crowd the spheres. 
 
 The slow creation of six thousand years, 
 
 Amkkt immensity it towers sublime, 
 
 — Winter's eternal palace, built by Time : 
 
 All human structures by his touch are borne 
 
 Down to the dusta-r- mountains themselves are worn 
 
 With his light footsteps; here for e?er grows. 
 
 Amid the region of unmelting snows, 
 
 A monumwit; where every flakp that falls, 
 
 Gives adamantine firmness to the walls. 
 
 The son. beholds no mirror, in his race. 
 
 That shews a brighter, image of his face ; 
 
 The stars, in their noctunial vigils, rest 
 
 Like signal fires on its illumined crest ; 
 
 The gliding moon around the ramparts whepls, 
 
 And all its magic lights and shades reveal§.j 
 
 Beneath, the tide with idle fury raves 
 
 To undermine it through a thousand cftvefc;
 
 64 GREENLAND. canto in. 
 
 Rent from its roof, though thundering fragments oft 
 Plunge to the gulph ; immoveable aloft, 
 From age to age^ in air, o'er sea, on land, 
 Its turrets heighten and its piers expand. 
 
 Midnight hath told his hour ; the moon yet young, 
 Hangs in the argent west her bow unstrung ; 
 Larger and fairer, as her lustre fades, fam t? f ; 
 Sparkle the stars amidst the deepening shades : 
 Jewels more rich than night's regalia gem 
 The distant Ice-Blink's spangled diadem ; 
 Like a new mom from orient darkness, there 
 Phosphoric splendours kindle in mid-air. 
 As though from heaven's self-opening portals came 
 Legions of spirits in an orb of flame, 
 — Flame, that from every point an arro\*^ sends, 
 Far as the concave firmament extends : 
 Spun with the tissue of a million lines, 
 Glistening like gossamer the welkin shines : 
 The constellations in their pride look pale 
 Through the quick trembling brilliance of that veil :
 
 CANTO III. GREENLAND. 65 
 
 Then, suddenly converged^ the meteors rush 
 O'er the Avide south; one deep vermilion blush 
 O'erspreads Orion glaring on the flood* 
 And rabid Sirius foams through fire and blood ; 
 Again the circuit of the pole they range, 
 Motion and figure every moment change, 
 Through all the colours of the rainbow run, 
 Or blaze like wrecks of a dissolving sun ; 
 Wide ether burns with glory, conflict, flight. 
 And the glad ocean dances in the light. 
 
 The seaman's jealous eye askance surveys 
 This pageantry of evanescent rays, 
 While in the horror of misgiving fear 
 New storms already thunder on his ear. 
 But morning comes, and brings him sweet release ; 
 Day shines and sets ; at evening all is peace : 
 Another and another day is past; 
 The fourth appears, — the loveliest and the last; 
 The sails are furl'd ; the anchor drags the sand ; 
 The boat hath cross'd the creek; — the Bretliren land. 
 
 ¥
 
 GREENLAND. -Bm^i- 
 
 9ij^ Air 
 
 savi^ifiw Jf Apf/ 
 
 CANTO IV. t'flw «ad baA 
 
 Retrospect of ancient Greenland: — TTie dU'dcfbery ' 6f' ' 
 Iceland, of Greenland, of Wineland. The Norwegian 
 colonies on the eastern and western coasts of Greenland; 
 the appearance of th^ Skraellings, or modern Green- ,..,", 
 landers, in the west, and the destruction of the Norwegian 
 settlers in that quarterl'^'^^:'^^'^^'^ io iJK4[ /.ii/iixic: nl 
 
 j^i Gib boaiS 
 iriERE while in peace the weary Pilgrims rest, 
 
 Turn we our voyage from the new-found west, 
 Sail up the current of departed time, 
 And seek along its banks that vanished clime, 
 By ancient scalds in Runic verse renown'd. 
 Now like old Babylon no longer found. 
 
 -t.c ; 
 ¥ 2
 
 68 GREENLAND. canto iv. 
 
 — " Oft was I weary when I toil'd at thee;" (a) 
 
 This on an oar abandoned to the sea, 
 
 Some hand had graven: — From what fomider'd boat 
 
 It fell; — how long on ocean's waves afloat ; 
 
 — Who mark'd it with that melancholy line ; 
 
 No record tells : Greenland ! such fate was thine ; 
 
 Whate'er thou wast, of thee remains no more 
 
 Than a brief legend on a foundling oar ; 
 
 And he, whose song would now revive thy fame. 
 
 Grasps but the shadow of a mighty name. 
 
 From Asia's fertile womb, when Time was young, 
 And earth a wreck, the sires of nations sprung ; 
 In Shinar's land of rivers, Babel's tower 
 Stood the lorn reUc of their scatter'd power ; 
 
 (a) About the middle of the seventeenth century, an oar 
 was drifted on the coast of Iceland, bearing this inscription 
 in Runic characters : 
 
 " Oft var ek dasa, dur ek dro thik." 
 " Oft was I weary when I drew thee." This oar was conjec- 
 tured to have been brought from East Greenland, a hundred 
 and fifty years after the last ship sailed from Norway for that 
 coast.
 
 CANTO IV. GREENL.\ND. €9 
 
 A broken pillar, snapt as from the spheres, 
 Slow- wasting through the silent lapse of years, Mjiooi? } 
 While o'er the regions, by the flood destroy'd, i &itiiW 
 The builders breathed new life throughout the void,' i" 
 Soul, passion, intellect ; till blood of man 
 Through every artery of Nature ran ; 
 O'er eastern islands pour'd its quickening stream, ' "^^ 
 Caught the warm crimson of the western beam. 
 Beneath the burning line made foimtains start Lbbw'!" 
 In the dry wilderness of Afric's hearty ■' y. i 1 /. 
 
 And through the torpid north, with genial heat, 
 Taught love's exhilarating pulse to beat ; 
 Till the great sun, in his perennial round, 
 Man, of all climes the restless native, found, 
 Pursuing folly in his vain career. 
 As if existence were immortal here; 
 While on the fathers* graves the sons, untaught 
 By their mischance, the same illusions sought, 
 By gleams and shadows measured woe and bliss. 
 As though xmbom for any world but this. 
 
 F 3
 
 70 GREENLAND. canto iv- 
 
 Five thousaftd years, unvisited, xinknown, 
 Greenland lay slumbering in the frozen zojae,'-^ 
 While heaven's resplendent host pursued their way 
 To light the wolf and eagle to their prey, 
 And tempests o'er the main their terrors spread 
 To rock Leviathan upon his bed ; — 
 Ere Ingolf his undaunted flag unfurl'd 
 To search the secrets of the polar world, {b) 
 'Twas. Liberty, that fires the coldest veins, 
 And exile, famine, death, prefers to chains; b )d? 'A 
 
 (6) Among numerous incoherent traditions, it is recorded, 
 that Iceland was first discovered by one Flokko, a pirate, who 
 being bewildered at sea, let fly (as was the custom of the 
 Norwegians in such extremities) a raven, which soaring to a 
 great elevation, discerned land, and made for it. Flokko 
 followed, and arriving at a mountainous coast covered with 
 snow and glaciers, called it Icelai^d. Some time afterwards, 
 about the year 874, Ingolf, a Norwegian earl, with his vassals 
 escaping from the tyranny of Harold Harfagar, pursued the 
 same course as Flokko, and by the same experiment with a 
 raven, discovered Iceland; which he and his followers peopled, 
 and there he established a commonwealth that reflated ho- 
 nour on an age of barbarism.
 
 CANTO IV. GREENLAND. 71 
 
 'Twas Liberty, through floods unplough'd before, 
 That led his gallant crew from Norway's shore; 
 They cut their cable, and in thunder broke, 
 With their departing oars, the tyrant's yoke ; 
 The deep their country, and their bark their home, 
 A floating isle, on which they joy'd to roam 
 Amidst immensity; — with waves and wind, 
 Now sporting and now wrestling ; — unconfined, 
 Save by the blue surrounding firmament. 
 Full, yet for ever widening, as they went : 
 Thus sail'd those mai-iners, unheeding where 
 They found a port, if Freedom anchor'd there. 
 
 By stars that never set, their course they steer'd, 
 And northward with indignant impulse veer'd, 
 For sloth had lull'd, and luxury o'errun. 
 And bondage seized, the realms that loved the sun. 
 At length by mountain-ice, with perils strange. 
 Menaced, repell'd, and forced their track to change, 
 They bade the unimprison'd raven fly, 
 A living compass through the chartless sky : 
 
 F 4
 
 72 GREENLAND. canto iv. 
 
 Up to the zenith, swift as fire, he so'ar'd, 
 Through the clear boundless atmosphere explored 
 The dim horizon stretcht beneath his sight ; 
 Then to the west full-onward shot his flight : 
 Thither they follow ; till from Thule's rocks, 
 Around the bird of tempests rose the flocks 
 Of screaming sea-fowl, widening ring o'er ring, 
 Till heaven grew dark ; then wheeling on the wing 
 Landward they whiten all the rocks below, 
 Or diving melt into the gulph like snow. 
 Pleased with the proud discovery, Ingolf gave 
 His lintel and his door-posts to the wave, 
 Divining as they drifted to the strand 
 The will of destiny, — the place to land, (c) 
 There on a homeless soil his foot he placed, 
 Framed his hut-palace, colonized the waste. 
 
 (c) This device of superstition is borrowed from the tradi- 
 tion concerning Ingolf, and probably the same was frequently 
 employed by the northern rovers, leaving their native country, 
 and seeking a home in strange lands.
 
 CANTO IV. GREENLAND. 
 
 And ruled his horde with patriarchal sway ; 
 
 — Where justice reigns, 'tis freedom to obey : 
 
 And there his race, in long succession blest, 
 
 ( Like generations in the eagle's nest, 
 
 Upon their own hereditary rock,) 
 
 Flourish'd, invincible to every shock 
 
 Of time, chance, foreign force, or civil rage ; 
 
 A noble dynasty from age to age ; 
 
 And Iceland shone, for generous lore renown'd, 
 
 A northern light, when all was gloom around. 
 
 Ere long by brave adventurers on the tide, * 
 A new Hesperian region was descried. 
 Which fancy deem'd, or fable feign'd so fair. 
 Fleets from old Norway pour'd their settlers there. 
 Who traced and peopled far that double shore, 
 Round whose repelling rocks two oceans roar, 
 Till at the southern promontory, tost 
 By tempests, each is in its rival lost. 
 Thus Greenland, (so that arctic world they named,) 
 Was planted, and to utmost Calpe famed
 
 74 GREENLAND. canto iv. 
 
 For wealth exhaiistless, which her seas could boast, 
 And prodigies of Nature on her coast ; 
 Where, in the green recess of every glen, 
 The House of Prayer o'ertopt the' abodes of men, 
 And flocks and cattle grazed by summer-streams, 
 That track'd the valleys with meandering gleams ; 
 While on the mountains ice eternal frown'd. 
 And growing glaciers deepen'd tow'rds the ground. 
 Year after year, as centuries roU'd away, 
 Nor lost one moment till that judgement-day, 
 When eastern Greenland from the world was rent, 
 Ingulph'd, — or fix'd one frozen continent, {d) 
 
 (d ) The extravagant accounts of the fertility of ancient 
 Greenland need not be particularised here. Some of the annals 
 state, that the best wheat grew to perfection in the valleys ; 
 that the forests were extensive and luxuriant ; flocks and 
 herds were numerous, and very large and fat, &c. At 
 St. Thomas's Cloister, there was a natural fountain of hot 
 water, (a geyser,) which, being conveyed by pipes into all 
 the apartments of the monksj ministered to their comfort 
 in many ways. Adjoining this cloister there was a richly 
 cultivated garden, through which a warm rivulet flowed, and 
 rendered the soil so fertile, that it produced the most beautiful 
 flowers, and the mos't delicious fruits.
 
 CAWTO IV. GREENLAND. 75 
 
 'Twere long and dreary to recount in rhyme 
 The crude traditions of that long-lost clime ; 
 To sing of wars, by barbarous chieftains waged, 
 In which as fierce and noble passions raged, 
 Heroes as subtle, bold, remorseless, fought. 
 And deeds as dark and terrible were wrought, 
 As round Troy-walls became the splendid themes 
 Of Homer's song, and Jove'^ Olympian dreams ; 
 When giant- prowess, in the iron field. 
 With single arm made phalanx'd legions yield ; 
 WTien battle was but massacre, — the strife 
 Of murderers, — steel to steel, and life to life. 
 — Who follows Homer takes the field too late ; 
 Though stout as Hector, sure of Hector's fate, 
 A wound as from Achilles' spear he feels, 
 Fallsj and adorns the Grecian's chariot-wheels. 
 
 Nor stay we monkish legends to rehearse ; 
 To build their cloister- walls in Gothic verse ; 
 Of groves and gardens^ wine and music tell ; 
 Fresh roses breathing round the hermit's cell,
 
 76 GREENLAND. canto iv. 
 
 And baths, in which Diana's nymphs might lave, 
 
 — From earth's self-opening veins the blood-warm 
 
 wave, 
 Whose genial streams, amidst disparted ice, 
 Made laps of verdure ; like those isles of spice 
 In eastern seas ; or rich oases, graced 
 With flowers and fountains, in the Lybian waste. 
 
 Rather the muse would ^retch a mightier wing. 
 Of a new world the earliest dawn to sing ; 
 How, — long ere Science, in a dream of thought. 
 Earth's younger daughter to Columbus brought, 
 And sent him, like the Faerie Prince, in quest 
 Of that " bright virgin throned in the west:" {e) 
 
 (e) Spenser introduces Prince Arthur as traversing the 
 world in search of his mistress Gloriana, whom he had only 
 seen in a dream. The discovery of a region in the west, by 
 the Greenland Norwegians, about the year 1000, and inter- 
 course maintained with it for 120 years afterwards, may be 
 considered as the most curious fact or fable connected with 
 the history of these colonists. The reason why it was called 
 Wineland, is given in the sequel. See also Note (H.) in the 
 Appendix.
 
 CANTO IV. GREENLAND. 77 
 
 — Greenland's bold sons, by instinct, sallied forth 
 On barks, like ice-bergs drifting from the north, 
 Cross'd without magnet undiscovered seas, 
 And, all surrendering to the stream and breeze, 
 Touch'd on the line of that twin-bodied land, 
 That stretches forth to either pole a hand. 
 From arctic wilds, that see no winter-sun, 
 To where the oceans of the world are one. 
 And round Magellan's streights, Fuego's shore, 
 Atlantic^ Indian, and Pacific roar. 
 
 Regions of beauty there these rovers found. 
 The flowery hiUs with emerald woods were crown'd, 
 ^Spread o'er the vast savannahs, bufialo herds 
 Ranged without master ; and the bright- winged birds 
 Made gay the sunshine as they glanced along. 
 Or tum'd the air to music with their song. . 
 
 Here from his mates a German youth had stray'd. 
 Where the broad river cleft the forest glade ; 
 Swarming with alligator-shoals, the flood 
 Bl»zed in the sun, or moved in clouds of blood ;
 
 78 GREENLAND. canto iv. 
 
 The wild boar rustled headlong through the brake ; 
 
 Like a live arrow leapt the rattle-snake ; 
 
 The uncouth shadow of the climbing bear '*' ' " ' 
 
 Crawl'd on the grass, while he aspired in air ; 
 
 Anon with hoofs, like hail, the greenwood rang, 
 
 Among the scattering deer a panther i^rang ; • 
 
 The stripling fear'd not, — yet he trod with awe, 
 
 As if enchantment breathed o'er all he saw, 
 
 Till in his path uprose a wilding vine!^*^"^''' ■ ' 
 
 — Then o'er his memory rush'd the noble Rhine; 
 
 Home and its joys, with fuUhess of delight, 
 
 So rapt his spirit, so beguiled his sights' 
 
 That in those glens of savage solitude, " - 
 
 Vineyards and cornfields, towns and spires he view'd. 
 
 And through the image-chamber of his soul, J% ""'^ 
 
 The days of other years like shadows stole ; 
 
 All that he once had been again he grew. 
 
 Through every stage of life he passed anew ; 
 
 The playmates of his infency Were there, 
 
 With dimpled cheeks^ blue eyeSj and flaxen h^r ;
 
 CANTO IV. GREENLAND. 79 
 
 The blithe companions of his riper youth, 
 
 And one whose heart was love, whose soul was truth. 
 
 — When the quick-mingling pictures of that dream, 
 
 (Like broken scenery on a troubled stream. 
 
 Where sky and landscape, light and darkness, run 
 
 Through widening circles,) harmonized in one; 
 
 His father's cot appear'd, with vine-leaves drest. 
 
 And clusters pendent round the swallow's nest; 
 
 In frcmt the little garden, at whose gate. 
 
 Amidst their progeny his parents sate. 
 
 He only absent; — but his mother's eye 
 
 Look'd through a tear; — she reach'd him with a sigh : 
 
 Then in a moment vanish'd time and space. 
 
 And with a shout he rush'd to her embrace ; 
 
 Round hills and dales the joyful tidings spread. 
 
 All ran to welcome Tyrker from the dead. 
 
 With bliss inebriate, in that giddy trance^ 
 
 He led his waltzing partner through the dance ; 
 
 And while he pluck'd the grapes that blush'd at hand, 
 
 Trod the rich wine-press in his native land,
 
 80 GREENLAND. canto iv. 
 
 QuaflP'd the full flowing goblet, loosed his tongue. 
 
 And songs of vintage, harvest, battle sung. 
 
 At length his shipmates came ; their laughter broke 
 
 The gay delusion ; in alarm he 'woke ; 
 
 Transport to silent melancholy changed ; 
 
 At once from love, and joy, and hope estranged. 
 
 O'er his blank mind, with cold bereaving spell. 
 
 Came that heart-sickness, which no tongue can tell ; 
 
 — Felt when, in foreign climes, 'midst sounds unknown. 
 
 We hear the speech or music of our own. 
 
 Roused to delight from drear abstraction start. 
 
 And feel our country beating at our heart ; 
 
 The rapture of a moment ! — in its birth 
 
 It perishes for ever from the earth; 
 
 And dvunb, like shipwreck'd mariners, we stand. 
 
 Eying by turns the ocean and the land. 
 
 Breathless; — tUl tears the struggling thought release. 
 
 And the lorn spirit weeps itself to peace. 
 
 Wineland the glad discoverers call'd that shore. 
 And back the tidings of its riches bore ;
 
 CANTO IV. GREENLAND. 81 
 
 But soon return'd with colonizing bands, 
 
 — Men that at home would sigh for unknown lands ; 
 
 Men of all weathers, fit for every toil. 
 
 War, commerce, pastime, peace, adventure, spoil; 
 
 Bold master-spirits, where they touch'd they gain*d 
 
 Ascendance ; where they fix'd their foot they reign'd. 
 
 Both coasts they long inherited, though wide 
 
 Dissever'd ; stemming to and fro the tide. 
 
 Free as the Syrian dove explores the sky. 
 
 Their helm their hope, their compass in their eye. 
 
 They found at will, where'er they pleased to roam, 
 
 The ports of strangers, or their northern home. 
 
 Still 'midst tempestuous seas and zones of ice, 
 
 Loved as their own, their tlnlost Paradise. 
 
 — Yet was their Paradise for ever lost : 
 
 War, famine, pestilence, the power of frost, 
 
 Their woes combining, wither'd from the earth 
 
 This late creation, Uke a timeless birth, 
 
 The fruit of age and weakness, forced to light, 
 
 Breathing awhile, — relapsing into night.
 
 82 GREENLAND. canto iv. 
 
 Ages had seen the vigourous race, that sprung 
 From Norway's stormy forelands, rock'd when young 
 In ocean's cradle, hardening as they rose 
 Like mountain-pines amidst perennial snows : 
 — Ages had seen these sturdiest sons of Time 
 Strike root and flourish in that ruffian clime, 
 Commerce with lovelier lands and wealthier hold, 
 Yet spurn the lures of luxury and gold. 
 Beneath the umbrage of the Gallic vine, 
 For moonlight snows and cavern- shelter pine. 
 Turn from Campanian fields a lofty eye '" * • ' * 
 To gaze upon the glorious Alps, and sigh. 
 Remembering Greenland ; more and more endear'd. 
 As far and farther from its shores they steer'd ; 
 G^'eenland their world, — and all was strange beside; 
 Elsewhere they wander'd ; here they lived and died. 
 
 At length a swarthy tribe, without a name, 
 Unknown the point of windward whence they came ; 
 The power by which stupendous gulphs they cross'd, 
 Or conipass'd wilds of everlasting frost,
 
 CANTO IV. GREENLAND. 83 
 
 Alike mysterious ; — found their sudden way 
 
 To Greenland ; pour'd along the western bay 
 
 Their straggling families ; and seized the soil 
 
 For their domain, the ocean for their spoil. 
 
 SJcraellings the Normans call'd these hordes in scorn, 
 
 That seem'd created on the spot, — though bom 
 
 In trans-atlantic climes, and thither brought 
 
 By paths as covert as the birth of thought; 
 
 They were at once; — the swallow-tribes in spring 
 
 Thus daily multiply upon the wing. 
 
 As if the air, their element of flight. 
 
 Brought forth new brootls from darkness every night; 
 
 Slipt from the secret hand of Providence, 
 
 They come we see not how, nor know we whence, {f) 
 
 A stunted, stern, uncouth, amphibious stock. 
 Hewn from the living marble of the rock, 
 Or sprung from mermaids, and in ocean's bed. 
 With ores and seals, in sunless caverns bred, 
 
 (/) See Note (I.) of the Appendix. 
 g2
 
 84 GREENLAND. canto iv. 
 
 They might have held, from unrecorded time, 
 
 Sole patrimony in that hideous clime, 
 
 So lithe their limbs, so fenced their frames to bear 
 
 The' intensest rigours of the polar air ; 
 
 Nimble, and muscular, and keen to run 
 
 The rein-deer down a circuit of the sun ; 
 
 To climb the slippery cliffs, explore their cells, 
 
 And storm and sack the sea-birds' citadels ; 
 
 In bands, through snows, the mother-bear to trace. 
 
 Slay with their darts the cubs in her embrace. 
 
 And while she lick'd their bleeding wounds, to brave 
 
 Her deadliest vengeance in her inmost cave : 
 
 Train'd with inimitable skill to float. 
 
 Each, balanced in his bubble of a boat. 
 
 With dexterous paddle steering through the spray, 
 
 With poised harpoon to strike his plunging prey ; 
 
 As though the skiff, the seaman, oar, and dart 
 
 Were one compacted body, by one heart 
 
 With instinct, motion, pulse empower'd to ride, 
 
 A human Nautilus upon the tidej
 
 <jANTo IV. GREENLAND. 85 
 
 Or with a fleet of Kayaks to assail 
 
 The desperation of the stranded whale, 
 
 When wedged 'twixt jagged rocks he writhes and 
 
 rolls 
 In agony among the ebbing shoals, 
 Lashing the waves to foam ; until the flood. 
 From wounds, like geysers, seems a bath of blood, 
 Echo all night dumb-pealing to his roar ; 
 Till morn beholds him slain along the shore. 
 
 Of these, — hereafter should the lyre be strimg 
 To arctic themes, — may glorious days be sung; 
 Now be our task the sad reverse to tell. 
 How in their march the nobler Normans fell; (g) 
 
 (g) The incidents alluded to in this clause are presumed 
 to have occasioned the extinction of the Norwegian colonists 
 on the western coast of Greenland. Crantz says, that there 
 is a district on Ball's river, called Pissiksarbik, or the place of 
 arrows ; where it is believed, that the Skraellings and Nor- 
 wegians fought a battle, in which the latter were defeated. 
 The modern Greenlanders affirm, that the name is derived 
 from the circumstance of the parties having shot their arrows 
 
 g3
 
 86 GREENLAND. canto iv. 
 
 — Whether by dire disease, that turn'd the breath 
 Of bounteous heaven to pestilence and death, 
 In number, strength, and spirit worn away, 
 Their lives became the cool assassin's prey; 
 — Or in the battle-field, as Skraellings boast, 
 These pigmies put to flight their giant-host, 
 When front to front on scowling cliffs they stood, 
 And shot their barbs athwart the parting flood ; 
 Arrow smote arrow, dart encounter'd dart, 
 From hand to hand, impaling heart for heart; 
 Till spent their missiles ; quick as in a dream 
 The images are changed, across the stream, 
 The Skraellings rush'd, the precipices scaled ; 
 ' — O'erwhelm'd by multitudes the Normans fail'd ; 
 A scattered remnant to the south retired, 
 But one by one along their route expired : 
 
 at one another from opposite banks of the stream. Many 
 rudera, or ruins of ancient buildings, principally supposed to 
 have been churches, are found along the coast from Disk6 
 Bay to Cape Farewell.
 
 CAKTo IV. GREENLAND. 87 
 
 They perish'd ; — History can no more relate 
 
 Of their obscure and unlamented fate ; 
 
 They perish'd ; — yet along that western shore, 
 
 Where Commerce spread her colonies of yore, 
 
 Ruins of temples and of homes are traced, 
 
 — Steps of magnificence amidst the waste. 
 
 Where Time hath trod, and left those wrecks to 
 
 shew. 
 That Life hath been, where all is Death below. 
 
 o4
 
 GREENLAND. 
 
 CANTO V. 
 
 The depopulation of the Norwegian Colonies on the eastern 
 coast of Greenland, and the abandonment of intercourse 
 with it from Europe, in consequence of the increase 
 of the arctic ices, about the beginning of the fifteenth 
 amtury, — described in a series of Episodes. 
 
 Launch on the gulph, my little Greenland bark ! 
 Bear me through scenes unutterably dark ; 
 Scenes with the mystery of Nature seal'd, 
 Nor till the day of doom to be reveal'd ; 
 What though the spirits of the arctic gales 
 Freeze round thy prow, or fight against thy sails. 
 Safe as Arion, whom the dolphin bore, 
 ^amour'd of his music, to the shore.
 
 90 GREENLAND. canto v. 
 
 On thee adventuring o'er an unknown main, 
 
 I raise to warring elements a strain 
 
 Of kindred harmony : — O lend your breath. 
 
 Ye tempests ! while I sing this reign of death, 
 
 Utter dark sayings of the days of old. 
 
 In parables upon my harp unfold 
 
 Deeds perish'd from remembrance ; truth, array'd, 
 
 Like heaven by night, in emblematic shade, 
 
 When shines the horoscope, and star on star. 
 
 By what they are not lead to what they are ; 
 
 Atoms, that twinkle in an infant's eye. 
 
 Are worlds, suns, systems in the' unbounded sky : 
 
 Thus the few fabled woes my strains create 
 
 Are hieroglyphics in a book of Fate, 
 
 And while the shadowy symbols I unroll 
 
 Imagination reads a direr scroll. 
 
 Wake, ye wild visions ! o'er the northern deep, 
 
 On clouds and winds, like warrior-spectres sweep ; 
 
 Shew by what plagues and hurricanes destroy'd, 
 
 A breathing realm became a to^id void.
 
 CANTO V. GREENLAND. $1 
 
 The floods are raging, and the gales blow high, 
 Low as a dungeon-roof impends the sky ; 
 
 t 
 
 Prisoners of hope, between the clouds and waves, 
 
 Six fearless sailors man yon boat, that braves 
 
 Peril redoubling upon peril past : 
 
 — From childhood nurselings of the wayward blast. 
 
 Aloft as o'er a buoyant arch they go, 
 
 Whose key-stone breaks; — as deep they plunge below; 
 
 Unyielding though the strength of man be vain ; 
 
 Struggling though borne like surf along the main ; 
 
 In front a battlement of rocks ; in rear, 
 
 Billow on billow bounding ; near, more near. 
 
 They verge to ruin ; — life and death depend 
 
 On the next impulse; — shrieks and prayers ascend j. 
 
 When, like the fish that mounts on drizzling wings, 
 
 Sheer from the gulph the' ejected vessel springs, 
 
 And grounds on inland ice, beyond the track 
 
 Of hissing foam-wreaths, whence the tide roll'd back ; 
 
 Then ere that tide, returning to the charge. 
 
 Swallows the wreck, the captives are at large.
 
 «2 GREENLAND. canto v. 
 
 On either hand steep hills obstruct their path ; 
 
 Behind, the ocean roaring in his wrath. 
 
 Mad as a Lybian wilderness by night. 
 
 With all its lions up, in chace or fight. 
 
 The fugitives right onward shun the beach. 
 
 Nor tarry till the inmost cove they reach, 
 
 Recluded in the labyrinthine dell, 
 
 Like the last hollow of a spiral shell. 
 
 There with the axe or knife which haste could save. 
 
 They build a house ; — perhaps they dig a grave : 
 
 Of solid snow, well- squared, and piled in blocks, 
 
 Brilliant as hewn from alabaster rocks. 
 
 Their palace rises, narrowing to the roof, 
 
 And freezes into marble, tempest-proof; 
 
 Night closing round, within its shade they creep, 
 
 And weary Nature sinks at once to sleep. 
 
 Oh ! could we walk amidst their dreams, and see 
 All that they have been, are, or wish to be. 
 In fancy's world ! — each at his own fire-side ; 
 One greets a parent ; one a new-made bride j
 
 CANTO V. GREENLAND. 
 
 Another clasps his babe with fond embrace^ 
 . A smile in slumber mantling o'er his face ; 
 All dangers are forgotten in a kiss, 
 Or but remember'd to exalt the bliss. 
 — One wounded sufferer wakes, with pain opprest; 
 Yet are his thoughts at home among the rest ; 
 Then beams his eye, his heart dilated burns, 
 Till the dark vigil to a vision turns, 
 That vision to reality ; and home 
 Is so endear'd, he vows no more to roam. 
 Ha ! suddenly he starts ; with trembling lips. 
 Salt shower-drops, oozing through the roof he sips ; 
 Aware that instant, yet alarm'd too late, 
 — The sea hath biu"st its barrier, fix'd their fate ; 
 Escape impossible ; the tempests urge 
 Through the deep dell the inundating surge ; 
 Nor wall nor roof the' impetuous flood controuls. 
 Above, around, within, the deluge rolls ; 
 He calls his comrades; — ere their doom be known, 
 'Tis past ; — the snow-house utterly o'erthrown.
 
 94 GREENLAND. canto v. 
 
 Its inmates vanish ; never to be found, 
 Living or dead, on habitable ground. 
 
 There is a beauteous hamlet in the vale ; 
 Green are the fields around it ; sweetly sail 
 The twilight shadows o'er the darkening scene, 
 Earth, air, and ocean, all alike serene. 
 Dipt in the hues of sun.set, wreath'd in zones, 
 The clouds are resting on their mountain-thrones; 
 One peak alone exalts its glacier crest, 
 A golden paradise, above the rest ; 
 Thither the day with lingering steps retires, 
 And in its own blue element expires; 
 Thus Aaron laid his gorgeous robes aside 
 On Horeb's consecrated top, and died. 
 The moon, meanwhile, o'er ocean's sombre bed. 
 New-risen, a thousand glow-worm lights hath spread ; 
 From east to west the wildfire splendours glance, 
 And all the billows in her glory dance ; 
 TUl, in raid-heaven, her orb might seem the eye 
 Of Providence, wide-watching from the sky,
 
 CANTO y. GREENLAND. 95 
 
 While nature slumbers ; — emblem of His grace, 
 Whose presence fills the infinite of space. 
 
 The clouds have left the mountains ; coldly bright, 
 Their icy summits shed cerulean light ; 
 The steep declivities between assume 
 A horror of unfathomable gloom : 
 The village sleeps ; — from house to house, the ear 
 Of yonder sentinel no sound can hear : 
 A maniac ; — he, while calmer heads repose, 
 Takes his night-round, to tell the stars his woes ; 
 Woes, which his noble heart to frenzy stung ; 
 — He hath no bard, and they remain unsung. 
 A warrior once, victorious arms he bore; 
 And bears them still, although his wars are o'er ; 
 For 'tis his boast, with shield and sword in hand, 
 To be the guardian Angel of the land. 
 Mark with what stern solemnity he stalks, 
 And to himself as to a legion talks ; 
 Now deep in council with his chiefs ; aoion, 
 He starts as at the trumpet, leads them on,
 
 96 GREENLAND. canto v. 
 
 Aiid wins the day ; — his battle-shout alarms 
 None but the infant in the nurse's arms ; 
 Soon hush'd, but closer to her side, it sleeps; 
 While he abroad his watch in sUence keeps. 
 At every door he halts, and brings a sigh, 
 But leaves a blessing, when he marches by : 
 He stops ; from that low roof, a deadly groan; 
 Hath made unutterable anguish known ; 
 A spirit into eternity hath pass'd ; 
 A spouse, a father^ there hath breathed his last. 
 The widow and her little ones weep not / 
 In its excess their misery is forgot^ 
 One dumb, dark moment ; — then from all their eyes 
 Rain the salt tears, and loud their wailings rise : 
 Ah ! little think that family forlorn 
 How brief the parting; — they shall meet ere morn * 
 For lo ! the witness of their pangs hath caught 
 A sight that startles madness into thought ; 
 Back from their gate unconsciously he reels; 
 A resurrection of his soul he feels
 
 CANTO V. GREENLAND. 97 
 
 There is a motion in the air ; his eye 
 
 BUnks as it fear'd the falling of the sky. 
 
 The splendid peak of adamantine ice, 
 
 At sun-set like an earthly paradise, 
 
 And in the moon of such empyrean hue, 
 
 It seem'd to bring the unseen world to view ; 
 
 — That splendid peak, the Power, (which to the spheres 
 
 Had piled its turrets through a thousand years,) 
 
 Touches, as lightly as the passing wind, 
 
 And the huge mass, o'erbalanced, undermined, 
 
 And dislocated from its base of snow, 
 
 Slides down the slope, majestically slow. 
 
 Till o'er the precipice, down headlong sent. 
 
 And in ten thousand, thousand spangles rent, 
 
 It piles a hill where spread a vale before : 
 
 — From rock to rock the echoes round the shore, 
 
 Tell with their deep artillery the fate 
 
 Of the whole village crush'd beneath its weight. 
 
 — The sleepers wake, — their homes in ruins hurl'd, — 
 
 They wake — from death into another world.
 
 98 GREENLAND. canto v. 
 
 The gazing maniac, palsied into stone, 
 Amidst the wreck of ice, survives alone ; 
 A sudden interval of reason gleams. 
 Steady and clear, amidst his wildering dreams. 
 But shews reality in such a shape, 
 'Twere rapture back to frenzy to escape ; 
 Again the clouds of desolation roU, 
 Blotting all old remembrance from his soul ; 
 Whate'er his sorrows or his joys have been, 
 His spirit grows embodied through this scene; 
 With eyes of agony, and clenching hands^ 
 Fix'd in recoil, a frozen form he stands, 
 And smit with wonder at his people's doom, 
 Becomes the monument upon their tomb. 
 Behold a scene, magnificent and new ; 
 Nor land nor water meet the' excursive view ; 
 The round horizon girds one frozen plain, 
 The mighty tombstone of the buried main. 
 Where dark, and silent, and unfelt to flow, 
 A dead sea sleeps with all its tribes below.
 
 CANTO V. GREENLAND. 99 
 
 But heaven is still itself; the deep blue sky 
 Comes down with smiles to meet the glancing eye, 
 Though if a keener sight its bound would trace, 
 The arch recedes through everlasting space. 
 The sun, in morning glory, mounts his throne. 
 Nor shines he here in solitude unknown ; 
 North, south, and west, by dogs or reindeer drawn, 
 Careering sledges cross the' unbroken lawn. 
 And bring from bays and forelands round the coast. 
 Youth, beauty, valour, Greenland's proudest boast, 
 Who thus, in winter's long and social reign. 
 Hold feasts and tournaments upon the main, 
 When, built of solid floods, his bridge extends 
 A highway o'er the gulph to meeting friends, 
 Whom rocks impassable, or winds and tide. 
 Fickle and false, in summer months divide. 
 
 The scene runs round with motion, rings with mirth, 
 — No happier spot upon the peopled earth; 
 The drifted snow to dust the travellers beat. 
 The' uneven ice is flint beneath their feet. 
 H 2
 
 100 GREENLAND. cANTG^v. 
 
 Here tents, a gay encampment, rise around. 
 
 Where music, song, and revelry resound; ^i'' *' 
 
 There the blue smoke up wreathes a hundred spires, 
 
 Where humbler groupes have lit their pine-wood fires. 
 
 Ere long they quit the tables ; knights and dames 
 
 Lead the blithe multitude to boisterous games. 
 
 Bears, wolves, and lynxes yonder head the chace; 
 
 Here start the harness'd reindeer in the race; 
 
 Borne without wheels, a flight of rival cars 
 
 Track the ice-firmament, like shooting stars. 
 
 Right to the goal, converging as they run. 
 
 They dwindle through the distance into oiic. 
 
 Where smoother waves have form'd a sea of glass, 
 
 With pantomimic change the skaiters pass ; 
 
 Now toil like ships 'gainst wind and stream ; then wheel 
 
 Like flames blown suddenly asunder ; reel 
 
 Like drunkards ; then dispersed in tangents wide. 
 
 Away with speed invisible they glide. 
 
 Peace in their hearts, death-weapons in their hands, 
 
 Fierce in mock-battle meet fraternal bands.
 
 NTO V. GREENLAND. 101 
 
 Whom the same chiefs erewhile tx) conflict led, 
 When friends by friends, by kindred kindred bled. 
 Here youthful rings with pipe and drum advance, ''•! 
 And foot the mazes of the giddy dance ; 
 Grey-beard spectators, with illumined eye, 
 Lean on their staves, and talk of days gone by ; 
 Children, who mimic all, from pipe and driun 
 To chace and battle, dream of years to come. 
 Those years to come the young shall ne'er behold ; 
 The days gone by no more rejoice the old. 
 
 There is a boy, a solitary boy. 
 Who takes no part in all this whirl of joy, 
 Yet in the speechless transport of his soul, 
 He lives, and moves, and breathes throughout the 
 
 whole : 
 Him should destruction spare, the plot of earth, 
 That forms his play-ground, gave a poet birth, 
 Who on the wings of his immortal lays, 
 Thine heroes, Greenland ! to the stars shall raise. 
 It must not be: — abruptly from the show jj 
 
 He turns his eyes ; his thoughts are gone below 
 
 u S
 
 102 GREENLAND. canto v. 
 
 To sound the depths of ocean, where his mind 
 
 Creates the wonders which it cannot find. 
 
 Listening, as oft he listens in a shell 
 
 To the mock-tide's alternate fall and swell. 
 
 He kneels upon the ice, — inclines his ear. 
 
 And hears, — or does he only seem to hear? — 
 
 A sound, as though the Genius of the deep 
 
 Heaved a long sigh, awaking out of sleep. 
 
 He starts; — 'twas but a pulse within his brain! 
 
 No; — for he feels it beat through every vein; 
 
 Groan following groan, (as from a giant's breast. 
 
 Beneath a burying mountain, ill at rest,) 
 
 With awe ineffable his spirit thrills, 
 
 And rapture fires his blood, while terror chills. 
 
 The keen expression of his eye alarms 
 
 His mother ; she hath caught him in her arms, 
 
 And learn'd the cause; — that cause, no sooner known, 
 
 From lip to lip, o'er many a league is flown ; 
 
 Voices to voices, prompt as signals, rise 
 
 In shrieks of consternation to the skies :
 
 CAMTO V. GREENLAND. 103 
 
 Those skies, meanwhile, with gathering darkness scowl; 
 Hollow and winterly the bleak winds howl. 
 — From morn till noon had ether smiled serene, 
 Save one black-belted cloud, far eastward seen. 
 Like a snow- mountain ; — there in ambush lay 
 The' undreaded tempest, panting for his prey : 
 That cloud by stealth hath through the welkin spread, 
 And hangs in meteor-twilight over-head; 
 At foot, beneath the adamantine floor. 
 Loose in their prison-house the surges roar : 
 To every eye, ear, heart, the' alarm is given, 
 And landward crowds, (like flocks of sea-fowl driven. 
 When storms are on the wing,) in wild affright, 
 On foot, in sledges, urge their panic flight, 
 In hope the refuge of the shore to gain 
 Ere the disruption of the struggling main, 
 Foretold by many a stroke, like lightning sent 
 In thunder, through the' unstable continent. 
 Which now, elastic on the swell below, 
 Rolls high in undulation to and fro. 
 
 u 4
 
 104 GREENLAND. canto v. 
 
 Men, reindeer, dogs the giddy impulse feel. 
 And jostling headlong, back and forward, reel ; 
 While snow, sleet, hail, or whirling gusts of wind, 
 Exhaust, bewilder, stop the breath, and blind. 
 AlH is dismay and uproar; some have found 
 Death for deliverance, as they leap'd on ground. 
 Swept back into the flood : — but hope is vain 
 Ere half the fugitives the beach can gain ; 
 The fix'd ice, severing from the shore, with shocks 
 Of earth-quake violence, bounds against the rocks, 
 Then suddenly, while on the verge they stand. 
 The whole recoils for ever from the land. 
 And leaves a gulph of foam along the shore. 
 In which whoever plunge are seen no more. 
 
 Ocean, meanwhile, abroad hath burst the roof 
 That sepulchred his waves ; he bounds aloof. 
 In boiling cataracts, as volcanoes spout 
 Their fiery fountains, gush the waters out; 
 The frame of ice, with dire explosion rends, 
 And down the' abyss the mingled crowd descends.
 
 CANTO V. GREENLAND. 103 
 
 Heaven ! from this closing horror hide thy light ; , 
 Cast thy thick mantle o'er it, gracious Night ! 
 These screams of mothers with their infants lost, 
 These groans of agony from wretches, tost 
 On rocks and whirlpools, — in thy storms be drown'd, 
 I The crash of mountain-ice to atoms ground. 
 And rage of elements ! — while winds, that yell 
 Like demons, peal the universal knell, 
 The shrouding waves around their limbs shall spread, 
 *' And Darkness be the burier of the dead." 
 Their pangs are o'er: — at morn the tempests cease. 
 And the freed ocean rolls himself to peace; 
 Broad to the sun his heaving breast expands, 
 He holds his mirror to a hundred lands ; 
 While cheering gales pursue the eager chace 
 Of billows round immeasurable space, (a) 
 
 (a) The principal phenomena, described in this disruption 
 of so immense a breadth of ice, are introduced on the autho- 
 rity of an authentic narrative of a journey on sledges, along 
 the coast of Labrador, by two Moravian missionaries and a 
 number of Esquimaux, in the year 1 782. The first incident 
 in this Canto, the destruction of the snow-house, is partly 
 borrowed from the same record.
 
 106 GREENLAND. canto v. 
 
 Where are the multitudes of yesterday? 
 At morn they came ; at eve they pass'd away. 
 Yet some survive; — yon castellated pile 
 Floats on the surges, like a fairy-isle ; 
 Pre-eminent upon its peak, behold, 
 With walls of amethyst and roofs of gold, 
 The semblance of a city ; towers and spires 
 Glance in the firmament with opal fires ; 
 Prone from those heights pellucid fountains flow 
 O'er pearly meads, through emerald vales below. 
 No lovelier pageant moves beneath the sky, [b] 
 Nor one so mournful to the nearer eye ; 
 
 (fc) The Ice-bergs, both fixed and floating, present the 
 most fantastic and magnificent forms, which an active imagi- 
 nation may easily convert into landscape scenery. Crantz says 
 that some of these look like churches, with pillars, arches, 
 portals, and illuminated windows ; others like castles, with 
 square and spiral turrets. A third class assume the appear- 
 ance of ships in full sail, to which pilots have occasionally 
 gone out, for the purpose of conducting them into harbour : 
 many again resemble large islands, with hill and dale, as well 
 as villages, and even cities, built upon the margin of the sea. 
 Two of these stood for many years in Disco Bay, which the 
 Dutch whalers called Amsterdam and Haarlem.
 
 CANTO V. GREENLAND. 107 
 
 Here, when the bitterness of death had pass'd 
 
 O'er others, with their sledge and reindeer cast, 
 
 Five wretched ones, in dumb despondence wait 
 
 The lingering issue of a nameless fate ; 
 
 A bridal party: — mark yon reverend sage 
 
 In the brown vigour 6f autumnal age ; 
 
 His daughter in her prime ; the youth, who w<hi 
 
 Her love by miracles of prowess done ; 
 
 With these, two meet companions of their joy. 
 
 Her younger sister, and a gallant boy. 
 
 Who hoped, like /im, a gentle heart to gain 
 
 By valourous enterprise on land or main. 
 
 — These, when the ocean-pavement fail'd their feet. 
 
 Sought on a glacier's crags a safe retreat. 
 
 But in the shock, from its foundation torn, 
 
 That mass is slowly o'er the waters borne. 
 
 An ice-berg ! — on whose verge all day they stand. 
 
 And eye the blank horizon's ring for land. 
 
 All night around a dismal flame they weep; 
 
 Their sledge, by piecemeal, lights the hoary deep.
 
 108 GREENLAND. canto v. 
 
 Morn brings no comfort ; at her dawn expire 
 The latest embers of their latest firej 
 For warmth and food the patient reindeer bleeds, 
 Happier in death than those he warms and feeds. 
 — How long, by that precarious raft upbuoy'd. 
 They blindly drifted on a shoreless void ; 
 How long they suffer'd, or how soon they found 
 Rest in the gulph, or peace on living ground : 
 — Whether, by hunger, cold, and grief consumed, 
 They perish'd miserably — and unentomb'd, 
 (While on that frigid bier their corses lay,) 
 Became the sea-fowl's or the sea-bear's prey ; 
 — Whether the wasting mound, by swift degrees. 
 Exhaled in mist and vanish'd from the seas, 
 While they, too weak to struggle even in death, 
 Lock'd in each other's arms, resign'd their breath, 
 And their white skeletons, beneath the wave, 
 Lie intertwined in one sepulchral cave : 
 — Or meeting some Norwegian bark at sea. 
 They deem'd its deck a world of liberty ;
 
 CANTO V, GREENLAND. li)9 
 
 — Or sunward sailing, on green Erin's sod, 
 They kneel'd and worshipp'd a delivering God, 
 Where yet the blood they brought from Greenland runs 
 Among the noblest of our sister's sons ; 
 
 — Is all unknown ; — their Ice-berg disappears 
 Amidst the flood of unreturning years. 
 
 Ages are fled ; and Greenland's hour draws nigh; v'^ 
 Seal'd is the judgement ; all her race must die ; 
 Commerce forsakes the' unvoyageable seas, 
 That year by year with keener rigour freeze ; 
 The' embargoed waves in narrower channels roll 
 To blue Spitzbergen and the utmost pole; 
 A hundred colonies, erewhile that lay 
 On the green marge of many a shelter'd bay. 
 Lapse to the wilderness ; their tenants throng 
 Where streams in summer, turbulent and strong. 
 With molten ice from inland Alps supplied. 
 Hold free communion with the breathing tide, 
 That from the heart of ocean sends the flodd 
 Of living water round the world, like blood ;
 
 no GREENLAND. canto v 
 
 But Greenland's pulse shall slow and slower beat, 
 Till the last spark of genial warmth retreat, 
 And, like a palsied limb of Nature's jframe, 
 Greenland be nothing but a place and name. 
 That crisis comes ; the wafted fuel fails, (c) 
 The cattle perish ; famine long prevails ; 
 With torpid sloth, intenser seasons bind 
 The strength of muscle and the spring of mind ; 
 Man droops, his spirits waste, his powers decay, 
 — His generation soon shall pass away. 
 
 At moonless midnight, on this naked coast. 
 How beautiful in heaven the starry host ! 
 
 (c) Greenland has been supplied with fuel, from time 
 immemorial, brought by the tide from the northern shores of 
 Asia, and other regions, probably even from California, and 
 the coast of America towards Behring's Straits. This annual 
 provision, however, has gradually been decreasing for some 
 years past, (being partly intercepted by the accumulation of 
 ice) on the shores of modern Greenland towards Davis's Straits. 
 Should it fail altogether, that country (like the east) must 
 become uninhabitable ; as the natives themselves employ 
 wood in the construction of their houses, their boats, and 
 their implements of fishing, hunting, and shooting, and could 
 not find any adequate substitute for it at home.
 
 CANTO V. GREENLAND. Ill 
 
 With lambent brilliance o'er these cloister-walls, 
 Slant from the firmament a meteor falls ; 
 A steadier flame from yonder beacon streams, 
 To light the vessel, seen in golden dreams 
 By many a pining wretch, whose slumbers feign 
 The bliss, for which he looks at morn in vain. 
 Two years are gone, and half expired a third, 
 (The nation's heart is sick with hope deferr'd,) 
 Since last for Europe sail'd a Greenland prow. 
 Her whole marine, — so shorn is Greenland now. 
 Though once, like clouds in ether unconfined. 
 Her naval wings were spread to every wind. 
 The monk, who sits the weary hours to count. 
 In the lone block-house, on the beacon-mount. 
 Watching the east, beholds the morning star 
 Eclipsed at rising o'er the waves afar, 
 As if, for so would fond expectance think, 
 A sail had cross'd it on the' horizon's brink. 
 His fervent soul, in ecstacy outdrawn. 
 Glows with the shadows kindling through the dawn,
 
 112 GREENLAND. canto y 
 
 Till every bird that flashes through the brine 
 Appears an arm'd and gallant brigantine ; 
 And every sound along the air that comes, 
 The voice of clarions and the roll of drums. 
 — 'Tis she ! 'tis she ! the well-known keel at last, 
 With Greenland's banner streaming at the mast; 
 The full-swoln sails, the spring-tide, and the breeze, 
 Waft on her way the pilgrim of the seas. 
 The monks at matins issuing from their cells, 
 Spread the glad tidings ; while their convent-bells 
 Wake town and country, sea and shore, to bliss 
 Unknown for years on any morn but this. 
 Men, women, children throng the joyous strand. 
 Whose mob of moving shadows o'er the sand 
 Lengthen to giants, while the hovering sun 
 Lights up a thousand radiant points from one. 
 The pilots launch their boats : — a race 1 a race ! 
 The strife of oars is seen in every face ; 
 Arm against arm puts forth its might to reach. 
 And guide, the welcome stranger to the beach.
 
 CANTO V. GREENLAND. 113 
 
 — Shouts from the shore, the cliffs, the boats, arise; 
 No voice, no sigftal from the ship replies ; 
 
 Nor on the deck, the yards, the bow, the stem, 
 
 Can keenest eye a human form discern. 
 
 Oh ! that those eyes were open'd, there to see, 
 
 How, in serene and dreadful majesty. 
 
 Sits the destroying Angel at the helm ! 
 
 — He, who hath lately march'd-from realm to realm,vM 
 And from the palace to the peasant's shed, 
 
 Made all the living kindred to the dead : . 
 Nor man alone, dumb nature felt his wrath. 
 Drought, mildew, murrain, strew'd his carnage-path ; 
 Harvest and vintage cast their timeless fruit. 
 Forests before him wither'd from the root. 
 To Greenland now, with unexhausted power, 
 He comes commission'd ; and in evil hour 
 Propitious elements prepare his way ; 
 His day of landing is a festal day. 
 
 A boat arrives; — to those who scale the deck. 
 Of life appears but one disastrous wreck ;
 
 1 14 GREENLAND. canto v. 
 
 Fall'n from the rudder, which he fain had grasp'd. 
 But stronger Death his wrestling hold unclasp'd, 
 The film of darkness freeing o'er his eyes, 
 A lukewarm corpse, the brave commander lies ; 
 Survivor sole of all his buried crew, 
 Whom one by one the rife contagion slew, 
 Just when the cliiFs of Greenland cheer'd his sight, 
 Even from their pinnacle his soul took flight. 
 Chill'd at the spectacle, the pilots gaze 
 One on another, lost in blank amaze ; 
 But from approaching boats, when rivals throng, 
 They seize the helm, in silence steer along, 
 And cast their anchor, 'midst exulting cries, 
 That make the rocks the echoes of the skies, 
 Till the mysterious signs of woes to come. 
 Circled by whispers, strike the uproar dumb. 
 Rumour affirms, that by some heinous spell 
 Of Lapland witches, crew and captain fell ; 
 None guess the secret of perfidious fate. 
 Which all shall know too soon, — yet know too late.
 
 CANTO V. GREENLAND. 115 
 
 The monks, who claim the ship, divide the stores 
 Of food and raiment, at their convent-doors. 
 — A mother, hastening to her cheerless shed. 
 Breaks to her little ones untasted bread ; 
 Clamorous as nestling birds, the hmigry band 
 Receive a mortal portion at her hand : 
 On each would equal love the best confer, 
 Each by distinct affection dear to her; 
 One the first pledge that to her spouse she gave, 
 And one unborn till he was in his grave ; 
 This was his darling, that to her most kind j 
 A fifth was once a twin, the sixth is blind : 
 In each she lives; — in each by turns she dies; 
 Smitten with pestilence before her eyes. 
 Three days and all are slain; — the heaviest doom 
 Is hers ; their ice-barr'd cottage is their tomb. 
 —The wretch, whose limbs are impotent with cold, 
 In the warm comfort of a mantle roU'd, 
 Lies down to slumber on his soul's desire ; 
 But wakes at mom, as wrapt in flames of fire ; 
 
 i2
 
 116 GREENLAND. canto v. 
 
 Not Hercules, when from his breast he tore 
 The cloak envenom'd with the Centaur's gore, 
 Felt sharper pangs than he, who, mad with rage. 
 Dives in the gulph, or rolls in snow to' assuage 
 His quenchless agony; the rankling dart 
 Within him burns till it consumes his heart. 
 From vale to vale the' affrighted victims fly, 
 But catch or give the plague with every aigh ; 
 A touch contaminates the purest veins, 
 
 Till the Black Death through all the region reigns. {cC^ 
 Comes there no ship again to Greenland's shore ? 
 
 There comes another; — there shall come no more; 
 
 Nor this shall reach an haven : — What are these 
 
 Stupendous monuments upon the seas ? 
 
 Works of Omnipotence, in wondrous forms, 
 
 Immoveable as mountains in the storms ? 
 
 ( d ) The depopulation of Old Greenland is supposed 16 
 have been greatly accelerated by the introduction of the 
 plague, which under the name of the Black Death made 
 dreadful havoc throughout Europe towards the close of the 
 fourteenth century.
 
 CANTO V. , GREENLAND. 117 
 
 Far as Imagination's eye can roll, ,;j ^,,j/ 
 
 One range of Alpine glaciers to the pole 
 Flanks the whole eastern coast ; and, branching widcj 
 Arches o'er many a league the' indignant tide, 
 That works and frets, with unavailing flow, '-. t-Sr; «,^\ 
 To mine a passage to the beach below ; 
 Thence from its neck that winter-yoke to rend 
 And down the gulph the crashing fragments send. 
 There lies a vessel in this realm of frost, 
 Not wreck'd, nor strandedj yet for ever lost ;• 
 Its keel embedded in the solid mass ; 
 Its glistening sails appear expanded glass ;- 
 The transverse ropes with pearls enormous strung^ 
 The yards with icicles grotesquely hung. 
 Wrapt in the topmast shrouds there rests a boy> 
 His old sea-faring father's only joy ; 
 Spnmg from a race of rovers^ ocean-bom. 
 Nursed at the helm, ho trod dry-land with scorn ; 
 Through fourscore years from port to port he veer*d, 
 Quicksand, nor rock, nor foe, nor tempest fear'd ; 
 
 1 3
 
 118 GREENLAND. canto v. 
 
 Now cast ashore, though like a hulk he lie, 
 His son at sea is ever in his eye, 
 And his prophetic thought, from age to age, 
 Esteems the waves his offspring's heritage : 
 He ne'er shall know, in his Norwegian cot, 
 How brief that son's career, how strange his lot ; 
 Writhed round the mast, and sepulchred in air. 
 Him shall no worm devour, no vulture tear ; 
 Congeal'd to adamant his frame shall last. 
 Though empires change, till time and tide be past. 
 
 On deck, in groupes embracing as they died. 
 Singly, «rect, or slumbering side by side, 
 Behold the crew ! — They sail'd, with hope elate. 
 For eastern Greenland ; till, ensnared by fate. 
 In toils that mock'd their utmost strength and skill, 
 They felt, as by a charm, their ship stand still ; 
 The madness of the wildest gale that blows, 
 Were mercy to that shudder of repose, , i , - 
 When withering horror struck from heart to heart 
 The blunt rebound of Death's benumbing dart.
 
 CANTO V. GREENLAND. 119 
 
 And each, a petrifaction at his post, 
 
 Look'd on yon father, and gave up the ghost ', {e) 
 
 He meekly kneeling, with his hands upraised, 
 
 His beard of driven snow, eyes fix'd and glazed, 
 
 Alone among the dead shall yet survive, 
 
 — The' imperishable dead that seem alive ; 
 
 — The' immortal dead, whose spirits, breaking free, 
 
 Bore his last words into eternity. 
 
 While with a seraph's zeal, a christian's love. 
 
 Till his tongue fail'd, he spoke of joys above. 
 
 Now motionless, amidst the icy air, 
 
 He breathes from marble lips imutter'd prayer* 
 
 (c) The Danish Chronicle says, that the Greenland colo- 
 nists were tributary to the kings of Norway from the year 
 1023 ; soon after which they embraced Christianity. In its 
 more flourishing period this province is stated to have been 
 divided into a hundred parishes, under the superintendance 
 of a bishop. From 1120 to 1408 the succession of seventeen 
 bishops is recorded. In the last-mentioned year, Andrew, 
 ordained bishop of Greenland by Askill, archbishop of Dron- 
 theim, sailed for his diocese, but whether he arrived there* 
 or was cast away, was never known. To his imagined fate 
 this episode alludes. 
 
 14
 
 120 GREENLAND. canto v. 
 
 The clouds condensedj with dark, unbroken hue 
 Of stormy purple, overhang his view, 
 Save in the west, to which he strains his sight. 
 One golden streak, that grows intensely bright, 
 Till thence the' emerging sun, with lightning blaze. 
 Pours the whole quiver of his arrowy rays ; 
 The smitten rocks to instant diamond turn, 
 And round the* expiring saint such visions bum, 
 As if the gates of Paradise were thrown 
 "Wide open to receive his soulj 'tis flown. 
 
 The glory vanishes, and over all 
 Cimmerian darkness spreads her funeral pall. 
 
 Morn shall return, and noon, and eve, and night 
 Meet here with interchanging shade and light; 
 But from this bark no tunber shall decay, 
 Of these cold forms no feature pass away ; 
 Perennial ice around the' encrusted bow. 
 The peopled deck, and full-rigg'd masts shall grow, 
 Till from the sun himself the whole be hid, 
 Of spied beneath a crystal pyramid ;
 
 CANTO V. GREENLAND. 121 
 
 As in pure amber, with divergent lines, 
 
 A rugged shell emboss'd with sea- weed shines. ; <• 
 
 From age to age increased with annual snow, 
 
 This new Mont Blanc among the clouds may glow. 
 
 Whose conic peak, that earliest greets the dawn. 
 
 And latest from the sun's shut eye withdrawn, 
 
 Shall from the zenith, through incumbent gloom, f 
 
 Burn like a lamp upon this naval tomb. , JUA 
 
 But when the' archangel's trumpet sounds on high. 
 
 The pile shall burst to atoms through the sky, 
 
 And leave its dead, upstarting, at the call, 'O 
 
 Naked and pale, before the Judge of all. 
 
 Once more to Greenland's long-forsaken beach. 
 Which foot of man again shall never reach, *' 
 
 Imagination wings her flight, explores liii ^jiitt 
 
 The march of Pestilence along the shores. 
 And see^ how Famine in his steps hath paced, 
 While Winter laid the soil for ever waste. 
 Dwellings are heaps of fall'n or falUng stones, t>li 
 
 The charnel-houses of unburied bones, .
 
 122 GREENLAND. canto v. 
 
 On which obscene and prowling monsters fed, 
 But with the ravin in their jaws fell dead. 
 Thus while Destruction, blasting youth and age. 
 Raged till it wanted victims for its rage ; 
 Love, the last feeling that from life retires, 
 Blew the faint sparks of his unfuell'd fires. 
 In the cold simshine of yon narrow dell. 
 Affection lingers; — there two lovers dwell, 
 Greenland's whole family ; nor long forlorn. 
 There comes a visitant ; a babe is bom. 
 O'er his meek helplessness the parents smiled ; 
 'Twas Hope; — for Hope is every mother's child: 
 Then seem'd they, in that world of solitude. 
 The Eve and Adam of a race renew'd. 
 Brief happiness ! too perilous to last ; ,,,,...,, 
 
 The moon hath wax'd and waned, and all is past : 
 Behold the end : — one mom, athwart the wall, 
 They mark'd the shadow of a rein-deer fall. 
 Bounding in tameless freedom o'er the snow ; 
 The father track'd him, and with fatal bow
 
 CANTO V. GREENLAND. 123 
 
 Smote down the victim ; but before his eyes, 
 
 A rabid she-bear pomiced upon the prize ; 
 
 A shaft into the spoiler's flank he sent, 
 
 She tum'd in wrath, and limb from limb had rent 
 
 The hunter; but his dagger's plunging steel. 
 
 With riven bosom, made the monster reel ; 
 
 Unvanquish'd, both to closer combat flew, 
 
 Assailants each, till each the other slew; 
 
 Mingling their blood from mutual wounds, they lay 
 
 Stretcht on the carcase of their antler'd prey. 
 
 Meanwhile his partner waits, her heart at rest, 
 No burthen but her infant on her breast : 
 With him she slumbers, or with him she plays, 
 And tells him all her dreams of future days. 
 Asks him a thousand questions, feigns replies, ;i ?' 
 And reads whate'er she wishes in his eyes. 
 — Red evening comes ; no husband's shadow falls. 
 Where fell the rein-deer's, o'er the latticed walls : 
 'Tis night; no footstep sounds towards her door; 
 The day returns, — but he returns no more.
 
 124 GREENLAND. canto v. 
 
 In frenzy forth she sallies ; and with cries, 
 
 To which no voice except her own replies 
 
 In frightful echoes, starting all around, 
 
 Where human voice again shall never sound, 
 
 She seeks him, finds him not ; some angel-guide 
 
 In mercy turns her from the corpse aside ; 
 
 Perhaps his own freed spirit, lingering near. 
 
 Who waits to waft her to a happier sphere, 
 
 But leads her first, at evening, to their cot. 
 
 Where lies the little one, all day forgot ; 
 
 Imparadised in sleep she finds him there. 
 
 Kisses his cheek, and breathes a mother's prayer. 
 
 Three days she languishes, nor can she shed 
 
 One tear, between the living and the dead ; 
 
 When her lost spouse comes o'er the widow's thought. 
 
 The pangs of memory are to madness wrought ; 
 
 But when her suckling's eager lips are felt. 
 
 Her heart would fain — but oh ! it cannot — melt; /„ 
 
 At length it breaks, while on her lap he lies, 
 
 With baby wonder gazing in her eyes.
 
 CANTO V. GREENLAND. 13ft 
 
 Poor orphan ! mine is not a hand to trace 
 
 Thy little story, last of all thy race ! 
 
 Not long thy sufferings; cold and colder grown, 
 
 The arms that clasp thee chill thy limbs to stone. 
 
 — 'Tis done: — from Greenland's coast, the latest sigh 
 
 Bore infant innocence beyond the sky.
 
 APPENDIX TO GREENLAND. 
 
 CANTO I. 
 
 (A.) p. 7. 
 The story of the introduction of Christianity among the 
 Sclavonic tribes is interesting. The Bulgarians, being bor« 
 defers on the Greek empire, frequently made predatory incur- 
 sions on the Imperial territory. On one occasion the sister 
 of Bogaris, King of the Bulgarians, was taken prisoner, and 
 carried to Constantinople. Being a royal captive she was 
 treated with great honour, and diligently instructed in the 
 doctrines of the gospel, of the truth of which she became so 
 deeply convinced, that she desired to be baptized ; and when» 
 in 845, the Emperor Michael III. made peace with the 
 Bulgarians, she returned to her country a pious and zealous 
 christian. Being earnestly concerned for the conversion of 
 her brother and his people, she wrote to Constantinople for 
 teachers to instruct them in the way of righteousness. Two
 
 128 APPENDIX TO GREENLAND. 
 
 distinguished bishops of the Greek Church, Cyrillus and 
 Methodius, were accordingly sent into Bulgaria. The King 
 Bogaris, who heretofore had resisted conviction, conceived a 
 particular affection for Methodius, who, being a skilful painter, 
 was desired by him, in the spirit of a barbarian, to compose 
 a picture exhibiting the most horrible devices. Methodius 
 took a happy advantage of this strange request, and painted 
 the day of judgement in a style so terrific, and explained its 
 scenes to his royal master in language so awful and affecting, 
 that Bogaris was awakened, made a profession of the true 
 faith, and was baptized by the name of Michael, in honour 
 of his benefactor, the Greek Emperor. His subjects, ac- 
 cording to the fashion of the times, some by choice, and 
 others from constraint, adopted their master's religion. To 
 Cyrillus is attributed the translation of the Scriptures still 
 in use among the descendants of the Sclavonian tribes, which 
 adhere to the Greek Church ; and this is probably the most 
 ancient European version of the Bible in a living tongue. 
 
 But notwithstanding this triumphant introduction of 
 Christianity among these fierce nations (including the Bo- 
 hemians and Moravians), multitudes adhered to idolatry, and 
 among the nobles especially many continued Pagans, and in 
 open or secret enmity against the new religion and its pro- 
 fessors. In Bohemia, Duke Borziwog, having embraced the
 
 APPENDIX TO GREENLAND. <M20 
 
 gospel, was expelled by his chieftains, and one Stoymirus, who 
 had been thirteen years in exile, and who was believed to be 
 a heathen, was chosen by them as their prince. He being, 
 however, soon detected in christian worship was deposed, and 
 Borziieog recalled. The latter died soon after his restoration, 
 leaving his widow, Ludomilla, regent during the minority 
 of her son fVratislaus, who married a noble lady, named 
 Drahomira. The young duchess, to ingratiate herself with 
 her husband and her mother-in-law, affected to embrace 
 Christianity, while in her heart she remained an implacable 
 enemy to it. Her husband dying early, left her with two 
 infant boys. fVenceslaus, the elder, was taken by his grand- 
 mother, the pious Ludomilla, and carefully educated in 
 christian principles ; the younger, Boleslas, was not less care- 
 fully educated in hostility against them by Drahomira ; who, 
 seizing the government during the minority of her children, 
 «hut up the churches, forbade the clergy eithec to preach or 
 teach in schools, and imprisoned, banished, or put to death 
 those who disobeyed her edicts against the gospel. But when 
 her eldest son, fVenceslaus, became of age, he was persuaded 
 by his grandmother and the principal christian nobles to take 
 possession of the government, which was his inheritance. 
 He did so, and began his reign by removing his pagan mother 
 and brother to a distance from the metropolis. Drahomira,' 
 transported with rage, resolved to rid herself of her mother-
 
 ISO APPENDIX TO GREENLAND. 
 
 in-law, whose influence over fVenceslaus was predominant. 
 She found two heathen assassins ready for her purpose, who, 
 stealing unperceived into Ludomilla's oratory, fell upon her 
 as she entered it for evening prayers, threw a rope round her 
 neck, and strangled her. The remorseless Drahomira next 
 plotted against Wenceslaus, to deprive him of the govern- 
 ment ; but her intrigues miscarrying, she proposed to her 
 heathen son to murder him. An opportunity soon offered. 
 On the birth of a son, Boleslas invited his christian brother 
 to visit him, and be present at a pretended ceremony of 
 blessing the infant. Wenceslaus attended, and was treated 
 with unwonted kindness ; but suspecting treachery, he could 
 not sleep in his brother's house. He therefore went to spend 
 the night in the church. Here, as he lay defenceless in an 
 imagined sanctuary, Boleslas, instigated by their unnatural 
 mother, surprised and slew him with his sabre. The mur- 
 derer immediately usurped the sovereignty, and commenced a 
 cruel persecution against the christians, which was terminated 
 by the interference of the Roman Emperor Otto 1., who made 
 war upon Boleslas, reduced him to the condition of a vassal, 
 and gave peace to his persecuted subjects. This happened in 
 the year 943.
 
 APPENDIX TO GREENLAND. 151 
 
 (B.) page 10. 
 The genuine followers of John Huss never approved of 
 the war for religion carried on by Ziska, though many of 
 them were incidentally involved in it. Rokyzan, a Calix- 
 tine, having with his party made a compromise with their 
 sovereign and the priests, by which they were allowed 
 the use of the cup in the sacrament, was made arch- 
 bishop of Prague in the year 1435 ; and thenceforward, 
 though he had been fully convinced of the truth of 
 the doctrines promulgated by Huss, he became a treacherous 
 friend or an open enemy of his followers, as it happened to 
 serve the purposes of his ambition. The Pope, however, 
 refused to confirm him in his new. dignity, unless he would 
 relinquish the cup ; on which, for a time, he made great 
 pretensions of undertaking a thorough reform in the church. 
 All who hoped any thing good of him were disappointed, and 
 none more than his pious nephew Gregorius, who in vain, on 
 behalf of the peace-loving Hussites, besought him to proceed 
 in the work of church-regeneration. He refused peremp- 
 torily, at length, after havmg greatly dissimulated and tem- 
 porized. His refusal was the immediate cause of the 
 commencement of the Church of the United Brethren, in 
 that form in which it has been recognized for nearly 400 years. 
 They were no sooner known, however, as " Fratres legis 
 
 k2
 
 132 APPENDIX TO GREENLAND. 
 
 " Christi," Brethren according to the rule of Christ, thaa they 
 were persecuted as heretics. Among others Gregorius, who 
 is styled the " Patriarch of the Brethren" was appre- 
 hended at a private meeting with a number of his people. 
 The judge who executed the royal authority, on enter- 
 ing the room, used these remarkable words : '^ It is writ- 
 *' ten, all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer per- 
 " secution; therefore follow me, by command of the higher 
 " powers." They followed, and were sentenced to the torture. 
 On the rack, Gregorius fell into a swoon, and all present 
 supposed him to be dead. Hereupon his apostate uncle 
 Rokyzan hastened to the spot, and falling upon his neck, 
 with tears and loud lamentations bewailed him, exclaiming — 
 *' O my dear Gregorius ! would God I were where thou art !" 
 His nephew, however, revived, and was set at liberty. He 
 afterwards, according to tradition, declared that in his trance 
 he had seen a vision; — a tree, covered with leaves and 
 blossoms and fruits, on which many beautiful birds were 
 feeding and melodiously singing. Under it, was a shepherd's 
 boy, and near at hand, three venerable old men, (as guardians 
 of the tree,) whose habiliments and countenances were those 
 of the three persons who, several years afterwards, were con- 
 secrated the first bishops of the church of the United 
 Brethren, by Stephen, the last bishop of the Waldenses.
 
 APPENDIX TO GREENLAND. ISflf 
 
 (C.) page 12. 
 Comenius afterwards visited and resided in various parts- 
 of Germany, Holland, and England ; every where, on his 
 travels, recommending, with earnestness and importunity, the 
 case of his oppressed brethren in Bohemia and Moravia to 
 men in power. But his appeals were in vain ; and when, at 
 the peace of Westphalia, in 1648, he found that nothing was 
 provided for their protection in the free exercise of their 
 religion, he published an affecting representation of the pe- 
 culiar hardships .of their church, in which he observed: — 
 " We justly, indeed, deserve to bear the wrath of Almighty 
 " God; but will such men (alluding to the Protestant diplo- 
 " matists and their constituent authorities,) be able to justify 
 " their actions before God, who, forgetting the common 
 '* cause of all Protestants, and the old covenants amongst 
 " us, neglect to assist those who are oppressed in the same 
 " engagements ? Having made peace for themselves, they 
 " never gave it a thought, that the Bohemians and Mora- 
 '• vians, who at the first, and for so many centuries, asserted 
 " the truth in opposition to Popery, were likewise worthy to 
 ** be mutually considered by them ; that the light of the 
 " gospel, which first was enkindled and put upon the candle- 
 " stick in the Brethren's church, might not now be extin- 
 '* tinguished, as it appears to be. This afflicted people^ 
 
 k3
 
 134< APPENDIX TO GREENLAND. 
 
 " therefore, which on account of its faithful adherence to 
 " the apostolic doctrines, following the footsteps of the 
 " primitive church, and the instructions of the holy fathers, 
 *' has been so much hated, persecuted, tossed to and fro, 
 *• and even forsaken by those of' its own household, and now 
 "finds mercy from no man; — this afflicted people has 
 " nothing left, but to cast itself upon the aid of the eter- 
 " nally merciful Lord God, and with the ancient prophet, 
 " when his nation was overthrown by its enemies, to ex- 
 r*' claim — ' For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye 
 *• * runneth down with water, because the Comforter that 
 " * should relieve my soul is far from me.' Lam. i. 16. — 
 ••^ 6ut Thmi, O Lord God! who abidest for ever and ever, 
 ** and whose throne is eternal, why wilt Thou forget us, and 
 " even forsake us in this extremity ? O bring us. Lord, again 
 •• to Thyself, that we may return to our homes. Renew our 
 ** days as of old."— In 1749 Comenius published a History 
 of the Brethren's Church, which he dedicated as his " last 
 " will and testament," to the Church of England, to preserve 
 for the successors of the brethren in future ages, as to the 
 last hour of his life he cherished the hope of their revival 
 and establishment in peace and freedom. — This work was 
 translated from the original Latin, and published in London 
 in 1661.
 
 APPENDIX TO GREENLAND. 135 
 
 ■; ,,,->: (D.) page 13. 
 
 Previous to the Reformation, for about fifty years, the 
 prisons in Bohemia, and especially at Prague, were filled from 
 time to time, in consequence of special decrees, with mem- 
 bers of the Brethren's church. Michael, one of their first 
 bishops, was long under rigorous confinement. Many perished 
 in deep dungeons, with cold and hunger ; others were cruelly 
 tortured. The remainder were obliged to seek refuge in thick 
 forests, and to hide themselves by day in caverns and recesses 
 among the rocks. Fearing to be betrayed in the dayrtime by 
 the smoke, they kindled their fires only at night, around 
 which they employed their time in reading the scriptures, 
 and in prayer. If they were under the necessity of going 
 out in the snow, either to seek provisions or to visit their 
 neighbours, they always walked behind one another, each in 
 his turn treading in the footsteps of the first, and the 
 last dragging a piece of brushwood after him, to oblite- 
 rate the track, or to make it appear as if some poor 
 peasant had been to the woods to fetch a bundle of sticks. 
 With the Reformers, Luther, Calvin, Zuingliics, Melanchton, 
 Bucer, and Capita, the Brethren held the most friendly 
 correspondence, and by all were acknowledged to be a 
 true apostolical church. The strictness of their church-dis- 
 cipline, however, and the difference which subsisted among 
 these great men themselves on that general subject, as well 
 
 k4
 
 1S6 APPENDIX TO GREENLAND. 
 
 as the insulated locality of the Brethren, probably were the 
 cairses why they remained still totally distinct from any of 
 the new christian societies which were then instituted, yifter 
 the Reformation, especially about the beginning and till the 
 middle of the seventeenth century, they were exposed to the 
 same kind of persecutions and proscriptions which their an- 
 cestors had suffered. After the death of the emperor flwdoZp//, 
 in 1612, the resolutions of the Council of Trent were decreed 
 to be put in force against all Protestants in Bohemia. This 
 occasioned a civil war, like that of the Hussites. The Bre- 
 thren, though they are understood to have taken very little 
 share in this defence of the truth, by weapons of carnal war- 
 fare, were nevertheless exposed to all the vindictive cruelty, 
 by which the Protestants in Bohemia were nearly extirpated, 
 after their defeat by the Imperialists, on the White Mountain, 
 near Prague, in 1620. On the 21st June 1621, no less than 
 twenty-seven of the Patrons (Defensores) of the Protestant 
 cause, principally nobles and men of distinction, were be- 
 headed, who all died as faithful witnesses and martyrs to the 
 leligion of Christ. This execution was followed by a decree 
 of banishment against all ministers of the Brethren's churches 
 in Bohemia and Moravia. Many hundred families, both 
 noble and plebeian, fled into the neighbouring provinces. 
 Emigration, however, was rendered as difficult as possible to 
 the common people, who were strictly watched by the erais-
 
 APPENDIX TO GREENLAND^ t^ 
 
 sarles of persecution. Many thousands, notwithstandlngi' 
 gradually made their escape, and joined their ministers in 
 exile; others, who from age, infirmity, or the burthen of 
 large families, could not do the same, remained in their 
 country, but were compelled to worship God, after the man- 
 ner of their forefathers, in secret only; for thenceforward 
 neither churches nor schools for Protestants were allowed to 
 exist in Bohemia and Moravia. Search was made for their 
 bibles and religious books, which were burnt in piles, and in 
 some places under the gallows. 
 
 ( E.) page 1 6. 
 After the lapse of nearly a century, during which the 
 refugees of the Brethren's churches, in Saxony, Poland, and 
 Prussia, were nearly lost among the people with whom they 
 associated, and the small remnant that continued in Moravia 
 kept up the fire on their family-altars, while in their churches 
 it was utterly extinct, a new persecution against this smalt 
 remnant drove many of them from their homes, who, under 
 the conduct of Christian David, finding an asylum on the 
 estates of Count Zinzendorf, founded near Bertholsdorf the 
 first congregation of the revived church of the United Bre- 
 thren. On the 8th of June 1722, Christian David, with four 
 of the first fugitives that arrived in Lusatia, were presented to 
 Count Zinzendorf 's grandmother, who instantly gave them 
 protection, and promised to furnish them with the means of
 
 138 APPENDIX TO GREENLAND. 
 
 establishing themselves on one of her family-estates. Count 
 Zinzendorf himself gives the following account of the cir- 
 cumstances under which he fixed upon the situation for these 
 settlers. He proposed a district called the Hutberg, near the 
 high road to 12'ttau. It was objected, by some who knew the 
 place, that there was no water there : he answered, " God 
 is able to help;" and the following morning early he repaired 
 thither to observe the rising of the vapours, that he might 
 determine where a well might be dug. The next morning he 
 again visited the place alone, and satisfied himself of its eli- 
 gibility for a settlement. He adds, " I laid the misery and 
 " desire of these people before God with many tears ; be- 
 " seeching Him, that his hand might be with me and frus- 
 " trate my measures, if they were in any way displeasing to 
 " Him. I said further to the Lord : Upon this spot J will, 
 " in thy name, build the first house for them. In the mean- 
 «* time the Moravians returned to the farm-house, (where 
 " they had been previously lodged,) having brought their 
 " families thither out of their native country. These I as- 
 *' sisted to the best of my power, and then went- to Henners- 
 " dor/ to acquaint my lady (his grandmother aforementioned) 
 " with the resolution I had taken. She made no objection, 
 " and immediately sent the poor strangers a cow, that they 
 " might be furnished with milk for their little children ; and 
 " she ordered me to shew them the trees to be cut down for 
 " their building."
 
 APPENDIX TO GREENLAND. 139 
 
 CANTO III. 
 
 (F.) page 45. 
 Crantz says : — "On the 10th of April the Brethren went 
 •' on board the king's ship Carilas, captain Uildebrand, ac- 
 " companied with many sincere wishes for blessing from the 
 " court (of Denmark) and all benevolent minds. The con- 
 " gregation at Herrnhut had a custom, from the year 1729, 
 " before the commencement of a year, to compile a little 
 " manual, containing a text of holy scripture for every day in 
 '* the same, and each illustrated or applied by a verse an- 
 " nexed, out of the hymn-book. This text was called the 
 *' word of the day ; it was given to be the subject of meditation 
 " with each member of the church in private, and of dis- 
 " course by the ministers in the public meeting. Many a 
 " time it has been found that the word of the day, on which 
 *• some peculiar event occurred, has remarkably coincided 
 "with it. Thus on this 10th of April, when our brethren 
 •♦ set sail (from Copenhagen) on a mission, which often after- 
 '* wards seemed to baffle all hope, the word was {Heb. xi. i.) 
 '• • Faith w the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of 
 " * things not seen.* 
 
 " ' We vieu> Him, whom no eye can see, 
 " « With faith's perspective steadfastly.'
 
 14-0 APPENDIX TO GREENLAND. 
 
 " In this confidence they set sail, nor did they suflfer them- 
 " selves to be confounded by any of the unspeakable diffi- 
 " culties of the following years, till they and we at last 
 " beheld the completion of what they hoped for by faith. 
 '• They had a speedy, and, excepting some storms, a commo- 
 " dious voyage. They sailed by Shetland April 22d, passing 
 " there out of the North into the West Sea, or long reach, 
 " and entered Davis's Straits about the beginning of May. 
 '• On the 6th they fell among some floating ice, in a thick 
 *' fog, and the next day were assailed by a terrible tempest, 
 " but this very tempest drove the ice so far asunder, that it 
 *' also dissipated their fears. The 13th they descried land, but 
 " on the same day, after a total eclipse of the sun, there 
 *' arose a violent storm, that lasted four days and nights, and 
 ♦' drove them sixty leagues back. May the 20th they entered 
 ♦' Ball's River, after a voyage of six weeks. The word of the 
 •' day was, ' The peace of God, which passeth all understand- 
 " * ing, keep your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ,* 
 " By this they were frequently encouraged in the first years 
 " ensuing, amidst all the opposition which they encoun- 
 " tered, and the small prospect of the conversion of the 
 " heathens."
 
 APPENDIX TO GREENLAND. l*t 
 
 (G.) page 56. 
 The Greenlanders believe that the sun and moon are sister 
 and brother. They, with other children, were once playing 
 together in the dark, when Aninga behaving rudely to his sister 
 Malina, she rubbed her hands in the soot about the ex- 
 tinguished lamp, and smeared his face, that she might 
 discover by day-light who was her tormentor ; and thus the 
 dusky spots on the moon had their origin ; for she, struggling 
 to escape, slipped out of his arms, soared aloft, and became 
 the sun. He followed up into the firmament, and was trans- 
 formed into the moon ; but as he has never been able to 
 rise so high as she, he continues running after her, with the 
 vain hope of overtaking her. When he is tired and hungry, 
 in his last quarter, he sets out from his house a seal- 
 hunting, on a sledge drawn by four great dogs, and stays 
 several days abroad to recruit and fatten ; and this produces 
 the full moon. He rejoices when the women die, and 
 Malina, in revenge, rejoices when the men die : therefore 
 the men keep at home during an eclipse of the sun, and 
 the women during an eclipse of the moon. "SVhen he is in 
 eclipse, Aninga prowls about the dwellings of the Green- 
 landers, to plague the females, and steal provisions and 
 skins, nay even to kill those persons who have not duly ob- 
 served the laws of temperance. At these times they hide
 
 1 
 
 142 APPENDIX TO GREENLAND. 
 
 their most precious goods ; and the, men carry kettles and 
 chests to the tops of their houses, and rattle upon them 
 with cudgels to frighten away the moon, and make him re- 
 turn to his place in the sky. During an eclipse of the sun, 
 the men skulk in terror into the darkest corners, while the 
 women pinch the ears of their dogs ; and if these cry out, 
 it is a sure omen that the end of the world is not yet come ; 
 for as dogs existed before men, according to Greenland logic, 
 they must have a quicker foresight into futurity. Should the 
 dogs be mute, (which of course they never are, under such 
 ill treatment,) then the dissolution of all things must be at 
 handi — See Crantz. 
 
 CANTO IV. 
 
 (H.) page 76. 
 An Icelander, named Bioern, in the year 1001, following 
 his father, who had emigrated to Greenland, is said to have 
 been driven] by a storm to the south-west, where he disco- 
 vered a fine champaign country covered with forests. He 
 did not tarry long there, but made the best of his way back 
 again, north-east, for Greenland, which he reached in safety. 
 The tidings of his adventure being rumoured abroad there.
 
 APPENDIX TO GREENLAND. 14S 
 
 one Leif, the son of Eric tlie Red, a famous navigator, being 
 ambitious of acquiring fame by discovering and planting new 
 lands, fitted out a vessel, with thirty-five men, ftnd sailed with 
 Bioern on board, in search ©f the south-west country. They 
 arrived, in due time, at a low woody coast, and sailed up a 
 river to a spacious lake, which communicated by it with the 
 sea. The soil was exceedingly fruitful, the waters abounded 
 with fish, particularly salmon, and the climate was mild. 
 Leif and his party wintered there, and observed that on the 
 shortest day the sun rose about eight o'clock, which may 
 correspond with the forty-ninth degree of latitude, and de- 
 notes the situation of Newfoundland, or the river St. Lau- 
 rence in Canada. — When they had built their huts, after 
 landing, they one day missed a German mariner named 
 Tyrker, whom, after a long search, they found in the woods, 
 dancing with delight. On being asked what made him so 
 merry, he answered, that he had been eating such grapes of 
 which wine was made in his native country. When Leif 
 saw and tasted the fruit himself, he called the new region 
 Viinland, or Wineland. Crantx, who gives this account, on 
 various authorities, adds in a note, that ** well-flavoured 
 " wild grapes are known to grow in the forests of Canada, 
 " but no good wine has been produced from them."— After 
 the return of Leif to Greenland, many voyages were under- 
 taken to Wineland, and some colonies established there.
 
 144 APPENDIX TO GREENLAND. 
 
 One Thorjin, an Icelander, who had' married a Greenland 
 heiress, Gudrid, the widow of the third son of Eric the Red, 
 by whom he obtained the inheritance of Wineland, ventured 
 thither with sixty-five men and five women ; taking cattle 
 and implements of husbandry with them, for the purpose 
 of building and planting. The natives (probably the Esqui' 
 maux,) found them thus settled, and were glad to barter 
 with their furs and skins in exchange for iron instruments, 
 &c. One of these barbarians, however, having stolen an 
 axe, was dolt enough to try its edge on his companion's 
 skull, which cost the poor wretch his life; whereupon 
 a third, wiser than either, threw the murderous weapon 
 into the sea. — Commerce with Wineland is reported to 
 have been carried on for upwards of an hundred years 
 afterwards. 
 
 (I.) page 83. 
 The ancestors of the modern inhabitants first appeared on 
 the western coast of Greenland in the fourteenth century, 
 and are generally supposed to have overpowered the few 
 Norwegians scattered in that quarter. They were called 
 Skraellings, a word of uncertain etymology, but most pro- 
 bably a corruption of Karallit or People, by which they de- 
 signated themselves. Of their origin nothing can be 
 ascertained. It seems on the whole not incredible (from
 
 APPENDIX TCT GREENLAND. 145 
 
 evidence and arguments which need not be quoted here,) 
 that they are the descendants of Tartarean rovers, gradually 
 emigrating from the heart of Asia, crossing over into West 
 America, traversing the northern latitudes of that continent, 
 «nd settling or wandering, as suited their convenience, till 
 the foremost hordes reached Canada and Labrador ; from 
 whence the first Skraellings may have found a passage, by 
 land or sea, to Greenland. That the Greenlanders are of 
 the same stock with the Esquimaux, is obvious from the 
 remarkable correspondence between their persons, dress, 
 habitations, boats, and implements of hunting and fishing, 
 as well as the similarity of manners, customs, superstitions, 
 and language. Of these more may be said hereafter, should 
 the. poem of Greenland ever be completed. Meanwhile the 
 slight sketch given in the context may suffice. The follow- 
 ing description of a Greenlander's fishing-boat, or kayak, 
 will, however, be useful to illustrate the passage. The 
 kayak is six yards in length, pointed at the head and stern, 
 and shaped like a weaver's shuttle ; it is at the same time 
 scarcely a foot and a half broad over the middle, and not 
 more than a foot deep. It is built of a slender skeleton of 
 \vood, consisting of a keel, and long side-laths, with cross- 
 ribs, like hoops, but not quite round. The whole is covered 
 with seal's skin. In the middle of this covering there is a 
 round aperture, supported with a strong rim of wood
 
 146 APPENDIX TO GREENLAND. 
 
 or bone. The Greenlander slips into the cavity with his 
 feet, and sits down upon a board covered with soft skin ; 
 he then tucks his water-pelt, or great coat, so tight about 
 him, (the rim of the opening forming a girdle round his 
 loins,) that no water can penetrate into his little skiff. 
 His lance, harpoon, and fishing tackle are all arranged in 
 due order before him. His pautik, or oar, (made of red 
 deal, and strengthened with bone inlaid,) he uses with ad- 
 mirable dexterity. This, except when he is using his 
 weapons, he grasps with both hands in the middle, strik- 
 ing the water on either side alternately, by which means 
 he can sail at the rate of twenty or even twenty-four 
 leagues a day. In his kayak the Greenlander fears no 
 storm, so long as he can keep his oar, which enables him 
 to sit upright among the roughest breakers, or if overturned, 
 while the head is downward imder water, with one stroke he 
 can recover himself ; but if he loses his oar, in a high sea, he 
 loses all. No European has ever yet been able to learn to 
 manage a kayak except in calm weather, and when he had 
 nothing to do but to row : to fish in it has been found im- 
 practicable to any but the natives themselves, trained from 
 their infancy to all the hardy exercises, which constituted, 
 before the introduction of Christianity, the whole education 
 ef the poor barbarians.
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 
 
 L S
 
 'JOW/il
 
 ^i 
 
 HOPE, 
 
 Imitated from the Italian of Serafino AauiLANO. 
 
 rlopEj unyielding to Despair, ^ 
 
 Springs for ever fresh and fair ; ^^^ 
 Earth's serenest prospects fly, 
 
 Hope's enchantments never die. t 
 
 .ui'.i t.lit X 
 
 At Fortune's frown, in evil hour, 
 
 Though honour, wealth, and friends, depart, ^^«M 
 
 She cannot drive, with all her power, 
 
 This lonely solace from the heart : '^ Jwl 
 
 And while this the soul sustains, 
 Fortune still unchanged remains ; 
 Wheresoe'er her wheel she guides, 
 Hope upon the circle rides. . ^-^ 
 L 3
 
 150 HOPE. 
 
 The Syrens, deep in ocean's caves, 
 Sing while abroad the tempests roar, 
 Expecting soon the frantic waves 
 To ripple on a smiling shore : 
 
 In the whirlwind, o'er the spray, 
 They behold the halcyon play ; 
 And through midnight clouds afar, 
 Hope lights up the morning star. 
 
 This pledge of bliss in future years 
 
 Makes smooth and easy every toil ; 
 
 The swain, who sows the waste with tears, 
 
 In fency reaps a teeming soil : 
 
 What though mildew blight his joy, 
 Frost or flood his crops destroy. 
 War compel his feet to roam^ 
 Hope still carols Harvest Home !
 
 HOPE. 151 
 
 The moijarch exiled from his realm. 
 The slave in fetters at the oar. 
 The seaman sinking by the helm. 
 The captive on his dungeon floor ; 
 
 All through peril, pain, and deatb^ 
 Fondly cling to parting breath ; 
 Glory, freedom, power, are past. 
 But the dream of Hope will last. 
 
 Weary and faint, with sickness worn, 
 
 Blind, lame, and dea^ and bent with age. 
 
 By man the load of life is borne 
 
 T6 his last step of pilgrimage : 
 
 Though the branch no longer shoot. 
 Vigour lingers at the root. 
 And in Winter's dreariest day, 
 
 Hope foretells returning May. 
 L 4
 
 \52 HOPE. 
 
 When, wrung with guilt, the wretch would end 
 His gloomy days in sudden night, 
 Hope comes, an unexpected friend, 
 To win him back to hated light : 
 
 " Hold !" she cries ; and from his hand 
 
 Plucks the suicidal brand ; 
 
 " Now await a happier doom, 
 - " Hope will cheer thee to the tomb." 
 
 When Virtue droops, as comforts fail, >J*^ X'fi'-^ 
 And sore afflictions press the mind. 
 Sweet Hope prolongs her pleasing tale, '^ ■"^' 
 Till all the world again looks kind : '.pi^ ic: ^::\ 
 Round the good man's dying bed, 
 Were the wreck of Nature spread, 
 Hc^e would set his spirit free, 
 Crying — " Immortality ! "
 
 A MOTHER'S LOVE 
 
 A Mother's Love, — how sweet the name ! 
 
 What is a Mother's love ? 
 — A noble, pure, and tender flame, 
 
 Enkindled from above. 
 To bless a heart of earthly mould i 
 The warmest love that can grow cold ; 
 
 This is a Mother's Love. 
 
 To bring a helpless babe to light, 
 
 Then while it lies forlorn. 
 To gaze upon that dearest sight. 
 
 And feel herself new-born.
 
 154 A MOTHER'S LOVE. 
 
 In its existence lose her own, 
 And live and breathe in it alone ; 
 This is a Mother's Love. 
 
 Its weakness in her arms to bear ; 
 
 To cherish on her breast, 
 Feed it from Love's own fomitain there , 
 
 And lull it there to rest ; 
 Then while it slmnbers watch its breath, 
 As if to guard from instant death ; 
 
 This is a Mother's Love. 
 
 To mark its growth from day to day, 
 
 Its opening charms admire. 
 Catch from its eye the earliest ray 
 
 Of intellectual fire ; 
 To smile and listen while it talks, 
 And lend a finger when it walks ; 
 
 This is a Mother's Love.
 
 A MOTHER'S LOVE. Bftr 
 
 And can a Mother's Love grow cold ? 
 
 Can she forget her boy? 
 His pleading innocence behold. 
 
 Nor weep for grief — for joy ? 
 A Mother may forget her child. 
 While wolves devour it on the wild ; 
 
 — Is ^Ats a Mother's Love? 
 
 Ten thousand voices answer " No !" 
 
 Ye clasp your babes and kiss ; 
 Your bosoms yearn, your eyes o'erflow ; 
 
 Yet ah ! remember this ; — 
 The infant, rear'd alone for earth, 
 May live, may die, — to curse his birth ; 
 
 — Is this a Mother's Love ? 
 
 A parent's heart may prove a snare; 
 
 The child she loves so well. 
 Her hand may lead, with gentlest care, 
 
 Down the smooth road to hell ;
 
 156 A MOTHER'S LOVE. 
 
 Nourish its frame, — destroy its mind; 
 Thus do the blind mislead the blind. 
 Even with a Mother's Love. 
 
 Blest infant ! whom his mother taught 
 
 Early to seek the Lord, 
 And pour'd upon his dawning thought 
 
 The day-spring of the word ; 
 This was the lesson to her son, 
 — Time is Eternity begun ; 
 
 Behold that Mother's Love, (a) 
 
 Blest Mother ! who, in wisdom's path, 
 
 By her own parent trod, 
 Thus taught her son to flee the wrath, -^^-^ -]^ 
 
 And know the fear of God : 
 Ah ! youth, Hke him enjoy your prime. 
 Begin eternity in time, 
 
 Taught by that Mother's Love. 
 
 (a) 2 Tim. c. 1. v. 5. andc.3. v. 14, 15.
 
 A MOTHER'S LOVE. 157 
 
 That Mother's Love ! — how sweet the name ! 
 
 What ixas that Mother's Love ? 
 — The noblest, purest, tenderest flame, 
 
 That kindles from above 
 Within a heart of earthly mould, 
 As much of heaven as heart can hold. 
 Nor through eternity grows cold : 
 
 This was that Mother's Love. 
 
 I
 
 THE TIME-PIECE. 
 
 W HO is He, so swiftly flying, 
 His career no eye can see ? 
 Who are They, so early dying, 
 From their birth they cease to be ? 
 Time : — behold his pictured face ! 
 Moments : — can you count their race ? 
 
 Though, with aspect deep-dissembling, 
 Here he feigns unconscious sleep, 
 Round and round this circle trembling, 
 Day and night his symbols creep. 
 While unseen, through earth and sky. 
 His unwearying pitiions ply.
 
 THE TIME- PIECE. 159 
 
 Hark ! what petty pulses, beating. 
 Spring new moments into light ; 
 Every pulse, its stroke repeating. 
 Sends its moment back to night ; 
 Yet not one of all the train 
 Comes uncall'd, or flits in vain. 
 
 In the highest realms of glory, 
 
 Spirits trace, before the throne. 
 
 On eternal scrolls, the story 
 
 Of each little moment flown; 
 
 Every deed, and word, and thought, -,ai<1!/, 
 
 Through the whole creation wrought. 
 
 Were the volume of a minute 
 Thus to mortal sight unroll'd. 
 More of sin and sorrow in it. 
 More of man, might we behold. 
 Than on History's broadest page 
 In the reliques of an age.
 
 160 THE TIME-]^IECE. 
 
 Who could bear the revelation ? 
 Who abide the sudden test ? 
 — With instinctive consternation, 
 Hands would cover every breast, 
 Loudest tongues at once be hush'd, 
 Pride in all its writhings crush'd. 
 
 Wlio, with leer malign exploring, 
 On his neighbour's shame durst look ? 
 Would not each, intensely poring 
 On that record in the book, 
 Which his inmost soul reveal'd. 
 Wish its leaves for ever seal'd ? 
 
 Sealed they are for years, and ages, 
 
 Till, — the earth's last circuit run, 
 
 Empire changed through all its stages, 
 
 Risen and set the latest sun, — 
 
 On the sea and on the land, -'^^tC m «i^' 
 
 Shall a midnight Angel stand : — ■ *^^ ^* 
 
 /:
 
 THE TIME -PIECE. 161 
 
 Stand; — and, whUe the' abysses tremble, 
 Swear that Time shall be no more : 
 Quick and Dead shall then assemble. 
 Men and Demons range before 
 That tremendous judgement-seat. 
 Where both worlds at issue meet. 
 
 Time himself, with all his legions. 
 
 Days, Months, Years, since Nature's birth. 
 
 Shall revive, — and from all regions. 
 
 Singling out the sons of earth. 
 
 With their glory or disgrace, 
 
 Charge their spenders face to face. 
 
 Every moment of my being 
 
 Then shall pass before mine eyes : 
 
 — God, all-searching ! God, all-seeing ! 
 
 Oh ! appease them, ere they rise ; 
 
 Wam'd I fly, I fly to Thee: 
 
 God, be merciful to me ! 
 
 M
 
 STANZAS 
 
 To the Memory of the Rev. Thomas Spencee, of 
 Liverpool, who was drowned, while bathing in the 
 tide, on the 5th of August 1811, in his 21st Year, 
 
 *' Thy way is in the sea, and thy path in the great waters ; 
 *' and thy footsteps are not known." Psalm Ixxvii. 19. 
 
 f • — ^ 
 
 1 WILL not sing a mortal's praise ; 
 To Thee I consecrate my lays, 
 
 To whom my powers belong ; 
 These gifts, upon thine altar strown, 
 O God ! accept; — accept thine own ; 
 My gifts are Thine, — be Thine alone 
 
 The glory of my song.
 
 STANZAS, &c. 163 
 
 In earth and ocean, sky and air, 
 All that is excellent and &ir. 
 
 Seen, felt, or understood. 
 From one eternal cause descends, 
 To one eternal centte tends, 
 With God begins, continues, ends, 
 
 The source and stream of good. 
 
 I worship not the Sun at noon, 
 
 The wandering Stars, th6 changing Moon, 
 
 The Wind, the Flood, the Flame ; 
 1 will not bow the votive knee 
 To Wisdom, Virtue, Liberty ; 
 " There is no God but God,** for me; 
 
 — Jehovah is his name. 
 
 Him through all nature I explore, 
 Him in his creatures I adore. 
 
 Around, beneath, above; 
 But, clearest in the human mind, 
 His bright resemblance when I find, 
 Grandeuj* with purity combined, 
 
 I most admire and love. 
 MS
 
 164 STANZAS TO THE MEMORY OF 
 
 Oh! there was One, — on earth a while 
 He dweh ; — but transient as a smile 
 
 That turns into a tear, 
 His beauteous image pass'd us by ; 
 He came, like lightning from the sky. 
 He seem'd as dazzling to the eye, 
 
 As prompt to disappear. 
 
 Mild, in his undissembling mien. 
 Were genius, candour, meekness seen ; 
 
 — The lips, that loved the truth ; 
 The single eye, whose glance sublime 
 Look'd to eternity through time ; 
 ITie soul, whose hopes were wont to climb 
 
 Above the joys of youth. ,L*iT., vn-,^ 
 
 Of old, — before the lamp grew dark. 
 Reposing near the curtain'd ark, 
 Tlie child of Hannah's prayer 
 Heard, through the temple's silent round, 
 
 r^:r- 
 
 A living voice, nor knew the sound,-, , 
 — That thrice alarm'd him, ere he found . 
 The Lord, who chose him there.* 
 
 * 1 Sana. chap. iii.
 
 r 
 
 THE REV. T. SPENCER. 1615 
 
 Thus early call'd, and strongly moved, 
 
 A prophet from a child, approved, »^1.' 
 
 Spencer his course began ; 
 From strength to strength, from grace to grace, 
 Swiftest and foremost in' the race. 
 He carried victory in his face ; ii 
 
 He triumph'd as he ran. 
 
 How short his day ! — ^the glorious prize, 
 To our slow hearts and failing eyes, 
 
 Appear'd too quickly won : 
 — The warrior rush'd into the field, n 
 
 With arm invincible to wield IT 
 
 The Spirit's sword, the Spirit's shield. 
 
 When lo ! the fight was done. 
 
 The loveliest star of evening's train 
 Sets early in the western main. 
 
 And leaves the world in night ; 
 The brightest star of morning's host. 
 Scarce-risen, in brighter beams is lost ; 
 Thus sunk hi8:form on ocean's coasts 
 
 Thus sprang his soul to light. 
 M 3
 
 166 STANZAS, &c. 
 
 Who shftll forbid ti»e ^e to weep. 
 That saw him, from the ravening deep, 
 
 Pluck'd like the lion's prey ? 
 For ever bow'd his hoiiour'd head. 
 The spirit in a moment fled, 
 The heart of friendship cold and dead, 
 
 The limbs a wreath of clay ! 
 
 Revolving his mysterious lot, 
 
 I mourn him, but I praise him not ; 
 
 Glory to God be given. 
 Who sent him, like the radiant bow. 
 His covenant of peace to show ; 
 Athwart the breaking storm to glow. 
 
 Then vanish into heaven, 
 
 O Church ! tp whom that youth was dear, 
 The Angel of thy mercies here. 
 
 Behold the path he trod, 
 *^ A milky way" through midnight skies ! 
 • — Behold the grave in which he liei. 
 Even from this dust thy prophet cries, 
 
 ^- Prepare to meet thy GOD."
 
 ISRAEL IN CAPTIVITY. 
 
 Psalm 137. 
 
 aVhere Babylon's proud waters roll, 
 In exile we sate down to weep j 
 For thoughts of Zion, o*er our soul, 
 Came like depaited joys in sleep, 
 Whose forms to sad remembrance rise, 
 Though lost for ever from our eyes. 
 
 Our harps upon the willows himg, 
 Where worn with toil our limbs reclined ; 
 The chords, untuned and trembling, rung 
 With mournful music on the wind ; 
 While foes, insulting o'er our wrongs. 
 Cried, " Sing us one of Zion's songs." 
 M 4<
 
 168 ISRAEL IN CAPTIVITY. 
 
 How can we sing the songs we love, 
 
 Far from our own delightful land ? 
 
 If I prefer thee not above 
 
 My chiefest joy, may this right hand, — 
 
 Jerusalem ! — forget her skill, 
 
 My tongue lie mute, my pulse be still.
 
 HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 Job^ ch. 14). 
 
 JnLow few and evil axe thy days, 
 Man, of a woman bom ! 
 Trouble and peril haunt thy ways : 
 — Forth hke a flower at morn, 
 The tender infant springs to light, 
 Youth blossoms with the breeze. 
 Age, withering age, is cropt ere night ; 
 — Man like a shadow flees. 
 
 And dost Thou look on such an one ? 
 Will God to judgement call 
 A worm, for what a worm hath done 
 Against the Lord of all ?
 
 170 HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 As fail the waters from the deep. 
 As summer brooks run dry, 
 Man lieth down in dreamless sleep ; 
 — Our life is vanity. 
 
 Man lieth down, no more to wake, 
 
 Till yonder arching sphere 
 
 Shall with a roll c£ thunder break, 
 
 And nature disappear, 
 
 — Oh ! hide me, till thy wrath be past. 
 
 Thou, who canst kill or save ; 
 
 Hide me, where hope may anchor fast. 
 
 In my Redeemer's grave.
 
 THE CHRISTIAN ISRAEL. 
 
 Thus far on Life's perplexing path. 
 Thus far the Lord our steps hath led ; 
 Safe from the world's pursuing wrath, 
 Unharm'd through floods hung o'er our head ; 
 Here then we pause, look back, adore, 
 Like ransom'd Israel from the shore. 
 
 Strangers and pilgrims here below. 
 As all our fathers in their day. 
 We to a Land of Promise go, 
 Lord ! by thine own appointed way ; 
 Still guide, illumine, cheer our flight. 
 In cloud by day, in fire by night.
 
 172 THE CHRISTIAN ISRAEL. 
 
 Protect us through this wilderness 
 From serpent, plague, and hostile rage ; 
 With bread from heaven our table bless. 
 With living streams our thirst assuage ; 
 Nor let our rebel-hearts repine, 
 Or follow any voice but thine. 
 
 Thy righteous laws to us, proclaim, 
 But not from Sinai's top alone ; 
 Hid in the rock-clift, be thy name, 
 Thy power, and all thy goodness shewn ; 
 And may we never bow the knee i>f ' 
 To any other Gods but Thee. 
 
 Thy presence with us move or rest; 
 — And as the eagle, o'er her brood. 
 Flutters her pinions, stirs the nest^ 
 Covers, defends, provides them food, 
 Bears on her wings, instructs to fly ; 
 — Thus, thus prepare us for the sky.
 
 THE CHRISTIAN ISRAEL. 173 
 
 When we have number'd all our years, 
 And stand at length on Jordan's brink; 
 Though the flesh fail with human fears, 
 Oh ! let not then the spirit shrink^ 
 But strong in faith, and hope, and love. 
 Plunge through the stream, — to rise above. 
 
 mH" 
 
 'il(
 
 THE VISIBLE CREATION. 
 
 1 HE God of Nature and of Grace 
 In all his works appears ; 
 His goodness through the earth we trace, 
 His grandeur in the spheres. 
 
 Behold this fair and fertile globe. 
 By Him in wisdom plann'd ; 
 *Twas He, who girded, like a robe. 
 The ocean round the land. 
 
 Lift to the firmament your eye t 
 Thither his path pursue ; 
 His glory, boundless as the sky, 
 O'erwhelms the wondering view.
 
 THE VISIBLE CREATION. . 175 
 
 He bows the heavens, — the mountains stand 
 
 A high -way for their God ; 
 
 He walks amidst the desert land, 
 
 — *Tis Eden where He trod. 
 
 The forests in his strength t'ejoice ; 
 Hark ! on the evening breeze. 
 As once of old, the Lord God's voice 
 Is heard among the trees. 
 
 Here on the hills He feeds his herds, 
 
 tlia flocks on yonder plains ; 
 
 His praise is warbled by the birds ; 
 
 — O could we catch their strains I fw.,/ I ^/ 
 
 — Mount with the lark, and bear our song 
 
 Up to the gates of light, 
 
 Or with the nightingale prolong 
 
 Our numbers through the night !
 
 176 THE VISIBLE CREATION. 
 
 In every stream his bounty flows, 
 Difiusing joy and wealth ; 
 In every breeze his spirit blowsj 
 -^The breath of life and health. 
 
 His blessings fall in plenteous showers 
 Upon the lap of earth, 
 That teems with foliage, fruit, and flowers, 
 And rings with infant mirth. 
 
 If God hath made this world so fair, 
 Where sin and death abound ; 
 How beautiful beyond compare 
 Will Paradise be found ! 
 
 .J orfj S'm lO
 
 SONNET. 
 
 Imitated from the Italian of Gaetana Passbrini. 
 
 If in the field I meet a smiling flower, 
 
 Methinks it whispers, " God created me, 
 
 " And I to Him devote my little hour, 
 
 " In lonely sweetness and humility." 
 
 If, where the forest's darkest shadows lower, 
 
 A serpent quick and venomous I see, 
 
 It seems to say,—" I, too, extol the power 
 
 « Of Him, who caused me, at his will, to be." 
 
 The fountain purling, and the river strong, 
 The rocks, the trees, the mountains raise one song; 
 « Glory to God !" re-echoes in mine ear : — 
 Faithless were I, in wilful error blind. 
 Did I not Him in all his creatures find. 
 His voice through heaven, and earth, and ocean hear 
 
 N
 
 SONNET. 
 
 Imitated from the Italian ©/"Giambattista Cotta. 
 
 I SAW the' eternal God, in robes of light. 
 Rise from his throne, — to judgement forth He came ; 
 His presence pass'd before me, like the flame 
 That fires the forest in the depth of night ; 
 Whirlwind and storm, amazement and affright, 
 Compass'd his path, and shook all Nature's frame, 
 When from the heaven of heavens, with loud acclaim. 
 To earth he wing'd his instantaneous flight. 
 
 As some triumphal oak, whose boughs have spread 
 Their changing foliage through a thousand years, 
 Bows to the rushing wind its glorious head. 
 The universal arch of yonder spheres 
 Sunk with the pressure of its Maker's tread. 
 And earth's foundations quaked with mortal fears.
 
 SONNET. 
 
 THE CRUCIFIXION. 
 
 Imitated from the Italidn o/" Crescrmbini. 
 
 I ASK*D the Heavens ; — " What foe to God hath done 
 " This unexampled deed ?" — The Heavens exclaim, 
 ** 'Twas Man; — and we in horror snatch'd the sun 
 " From sudi a spectacle of guilt and shame." 
 
 I ask'd the Sea; — the Sea in fury boii'd, 
 And answer'd with his voice of storms, — " 'Twas Man ; 
 " My waves in panic at his crime recoil'd, 
 " Disclosed the abyss, and from the centre ran." 
 
 n2
 
 180 THE CRUCIFIXION. 
 
 I ask'd the Earth; — the Earth repHed aghast, 
 
 " 'Twas Man; — and such strange pangs my bosom 
 
 rent, 
 " That still I groan and shudder at the past." 
 — To IV^an, gay, smiling, thoughtless Man, I went, 
 And ask'd him next : — He turn'd a scornful eye. 
 Shook his proud head, and deign'd me no reply.
 
 CHRIST'S PASSION. 
 
 1 HE morning dawns upon the place, 
 Where Jesus spent the night in prayer; 
 Through brightening glooms behold his face. 
 No form nor comeliness is there. 
 Last eve, by those He call'd his own, 
 Betray'd, forsaken, or denied,^ 
 He met his enemies alone, 
 In all their malice, rage, and pride. 
 
 Brought forth to judgement now he stands, 
 Arraign'd, condemn'd, at PUate's bar ; 
 Here spum'd by fierce Praetorian bands, 
 There mock'd by Herod's men of war : 
 He bears their bufFetting and scorn, 
 Feign'd homage of the lip, the knee, 
 The purple robe, the crown of thorn, 
 The scourge, the nail, the* accursed tree. 
 k8
 
 182 CHRIST'S PASSION. 
 
 No guile within his mouth is found, 
 He neither threatens nor complains ; 
 Meek as a lamb for slaughter bound. 
 Dumb midst his murderers He remains : 
 But hark ! He prays; — 'tis for his foes; 
 He speaks ; — 'tis comfort to his friends ; 
 Answers; — and Paradise bestows ; 
 " 'Tis finish'd !" — here the conflict ends. 
 
 He dies ; the veil is rent in twain ; 
 Darkness o'er all the land is spread, 
 High, without tempest, rolls the main, 
 Earth trembles, graves give up their dead ; 
 « Truly this was the Son of God !" 
 — Though in a servant's mean disguise, 
 And bruised beneath the Father's rod. 
 Not for Himself, — for Man He dies. 
 
 /wv
 
 CHRIST'S TRIUMPH. 
 
 JlIark ! the song of Jubilee, 
 Loud as mighty thunders roar, 
 Or the fulness of the sea, 
 When it breaks upon the shore : — 
 Hallelujah ! for the Lord, 
 God Omnipotent, shall reign ; 
 Hallelujah ! — let the word 
 Echo round the earth and main. 
 
 Hallelujah ! — hark ! the sound, 
 From the* abysses to the skies, 
 Wakes above, beneath, around, 
 All Creation's harmonies : 
 See Jehovah's banner furl'd, 
 Sheathed his sword: — He speaks, — 'tis done; 
 And the kingdoms of this world 
 Are the kingdoms of his Son. 
 ir4
 
 184 CHRIST'S TRIUMPH. 
 
 He shall reign from pole to pole, 
 With illimitable sway ; 
 He shall reign, when, like a scroll. 
 Yonder heavens have pass'd away : 
 Then the end : — beneath his rod, 
 Man's last enemy shall fall ; 
 Hallelujah ! Christ in God, 
 God in Christ, is All in All. 
 
 ,J!r 9tA
 
 SAINTS IN HEAVEN. 
 
 What axe these in bright array ? 
 This innumerable throng, 
 Round the altar, night and day. 
 Tuning their triumphant song ? 
 — " Worthy is the Lamb once slain, 
 Blessing, honour, glory, power. 
 Wisdom, riches, to obtain ; 
 New dominion, every hour." 
 
 These through fiery trials trod ; 
 These from great affliction came ; 
 Now before the throne of God, 
 Seal'd with his eternal name ; 
 Clad in raiment pure and white, 
 Victor-palms in every hand, 
 Through their great Redeemer's might, 
 More than conquerors they stand.
 
 186 SAINTS IN HEAVEN. 
 
 Hunger, thirst, disease, unknown, 
 On immortal fruits they feed ; 
 Them the Lamb, amidst the throne, 
 Shall to living fountains lead ; 
 Joy and gladness banish sighs. 
 Perfect love dispels their fears. 
 And for ever from their eyes 
 God shall wipe away all tears.
 
 THE BIBLE. 
 
 AA' HAT is the world ? — A wildering maze, 
 Where Sin hath track'd ten thousand ways, 
 
 Her victims to ensnare ; 
 All broad, and winding, and aslope. 
 All tempting with perfidious hope, 
 
 All ending in despair. 
 
 Millions of pilgrims throng those roads. 
 Bearing their baubles, or their loads, 
 
 Down to eternal night : 
 — One humble path, that never bends, 
 Narrow, and roughs and steep, ascends 
 
 From darkness into light.
 
 188 THE BIBLE. 
 
 Is there a Guide to shew that path ? 
 The Bible: — He alone, who hath 
 
 The Bible, need not stray : 
 Yet he who hath, and will not give 
 That heavenly Guide to all that live, 
 
 Himself shall lose the way. 
 
 ;/
 
 INSTRUCTION. 
 
 r ROM heaven descend the drops of dew, y*^ 
 From heaven the gracious showers, 
 Earth's winter-aspect to renew, 
 And clothe the spring with flowers ; 
 From heaven the beams of morning flow, 
 That melt the gloom of night ; 
 From heaven the evening breezes blow, 
 Health, fragrance, and delight. 
 
 Like genial dew, like fertile showers. 
 
 The words of wisdom fall. 
 
 Awaken man's miconscious powers. 
 
 Strength out of weakness call : 
 
 Like morning beams they strike the mind. 
 
 Its loveliness reveal ; 
 
 And softer than the evening wind. 
 
 The wounded spirit heal.
 
 190 INSTRUCTION. 
 
 As dew and rain, as light and air, 
 
 From heaven Instruction came ; 
 
 The waste of Nature to repair. 
 
 Kindle a sacred flame ; 
 
 A flame to purify the earth, 
 
 Exalt her sons on high. 
 
 And train them for their second birth, 
 
 —Their birth beyond the sky. 
 
 Albion ! on every human soul. 
 
 By thee be knowledge shed, 
 
 Far as the ocean-waters roll, 
 
 Wide as the shores are spread : 
 
 Truth makes thy children free at home ; 
 
 Oh ! that thy flag, unfurl'd, 
 
 Might shine, where'er thy children roam. 
 
 Truth's banner round the world.
 
 THE CHRISTIAN SOLDIER. 
 
 Occasioned by the sudden death of the Reverend 
 Thomas Taylor ; after having declared^ in his 
 last Sermon, on a preceding evening, that he hoped 
 to die as an old soldier of Jesus Christ, with his 
 sword in his hand. 
 
 Servant of God ! well done ; 
 Rest from thy loved employ ; 
 The battle fought, the victory won, 
 Enter thy Master's joy.'* 
 — The voice at midnight came ; 
 He started up to hear, 
 A mortal arrow pierced his frame ; 
 He fell, — but felt no fear. 
 
 Tranquil amidst alarms. 
 
 It found him in the field, 
 
 A veteran slumbering on his arms. 
 
 Beneath his red-cross shield :
 
 192 THE CHRISTIAN SOLDIER. 
 
 His sword was in his hand, 
 Still warm with recent fight ; 
 Ready that moment at command, 
 Through rock and steel to smite. 
 
 It was a two-edged blade, 
 
 Of heavenly temper keen ; 
 
 And double were the wounds it made. 
 
 Where'er it smote between : 
 
 'Twas death to sin ; — 'twas life 
 
 To all that mourn'd for sin ; 
 
 It kindled and it silenced strife, 
 
 Made war and peace within. 
 
 Oft with its fiery force. 
 His arm had quell'd the foe. 
 And laid, resistless in his course. 
 The alien-armies low. 
 Bent on such glorious toils, 
 The world to him was loss ; 
 Yet all his trophies, all his spoils, 
 He hung upon the cross.
 
 THE CHRISTIAN SOLDIER. 193 
 
 At midnight came the cry, 
 
 "To meet tliy God prepare !" 
 
 He woke,— r- and caught his Captain's eye; 
 
 Then, strong in faith and prayer, 
 
 His spirit, with a bound, 
 
 Burst its encumbering clay ; 
 
 His tent, at sun-rise, on the ground, 
 
 A darken'd ruin lay. 
 
 The pains of death are past, 
 
 Labour and sorrow cease, 
 
 And life's long warfare closed at last, 
 
 His soul is found in peace. 
 
 Soldier of Christ ! well done ; i' 
 
 Praise be thy new employ ; 
 
 And whilp eternal ages run, 
 
 Rest in thy Saviour's joy.
 
 ON THE ROYAL INFANT, 
 
 Still-born, Nov. 5, 1817. 
 
 A THRONE on earth awaited thee; 
 A nation long*!! to see thy face, 
 Heir to a glorious ancestry. 
 And father of a mightier race. 
 
 Vain hope i that throne thou must not fill; 
 Thee may that nation ne'er behold; 
 Thine ancient house is heirless still, 
 Thy line shall never be unroU'd* , ,r 
 
 Yet while we mourn thy flight from earth, 
 Thine was a destiny sublime ; 
 Caught up to Paradise in birth, 
 Pluck'd by Eternity from Time.
 
 ON THE ROYAL INFANT. 195 
 
 The Mother knew her ofispring dead : 
 Oh ! was it grief, or was it love 
 That broke her heart ? — The spirit fled 
 To seek her nameless child above. 
 
 Led by his natal star, she trod 
 The path to heaven : — the meeting there, 
 And how they stood before their God, 
 Tlie day of judgement shall declare. 
 
 o2
 
 A MIDNIGHT THOUGHT. 
 
 In a land of strange delight, 
 My transported spirit stray'd, 
 I awake where all is night, 
 Silence, solitude, and shade. 
 
 Is the dream of Nature flown ? 
 
 Is the universe destroy'd, 
 
 Man extinct, and I alone 
 
 Breathing through the formless void ? 
 
 No : — my soul, in God rejoice ; 
 Through the gloom his light I see. 
 In the silence hear his voice. 
 And his hand is over me. 
 
 When I slumber in the tomb. 
 He will guard my resting-place ; 
 Fearless in the day of doom. 
 May I stand before his face !
 
 A NIGHT IN A STAGE-COACH : 
 
 BEING 
 
 A Meditation on the way between London and Bristol, 
 Sept. 23, 1815. 
 
 I TRAVEL all the irksome night. 
 
 By ways to me unknown ; 
 I travel, like a bird in flight, 
 
 Onward, and all alone. 
 
 In vain I close my weary eyes, 
 
 They will not, cannot sleep, 
 But, like the watchers of the skies, 
 
 Their twinkling vigils keep. 
 
 My thoughts are wandering wild and far ; 
 
 From earth to heaven they dart^ 
 Now wing their flight from star to star, 
 
 Now dive into my heart. 
 OS
 
 198 A NIGHT IN A STAGE-COACH. 
 
 Backward they roll the tide of time, 
 And live through vanish'd years ; 
 
 Or hold their " colloquy sublime" 
 With future hopes and fears ; — 
 
 Then passing joys and present woes 
 Chase through my troubled mind ; 
 
 Repose still seeking, — but repose 
 Not for a moment find. 
 
 So yonder lone and lovely moon 
 Gleams on the clouds gone by, 
 
 Illumines those around her noon, 
 Yet westward points her eye. 
 
 Nor wind nor flood her course delay, 
 Through heaven I see her glide ; 
 
 She never pauses on her way. 
 She never turns aside.
 
 A NIGHT IN A STAGE-COACH. 199 
 
 With anxious heart and throbbing brain, T 
 
 Strength, patience, spirits gone, 
 Pulses of fire in every vein, 
 
 Thus, thus I journey on. 
 
 But soft I — in Nature's failing hour, 
 
 Up springs a breeze, — I feel 
 Its balmy breath, its cordial power, 
 
 —A power to soothe and heal. 
 
 Lo ! grey, and gold, and crimson streaks 
 
 The gorgeous east adorn. 
 While o'er the' empurpled mountain breaks 
 
 The glory of the mom^ 
 
 Insensibly the stars retire, 
 
 Exhaled like drops of dewj 
 
 Now through an arch of living fire, 
 
 The sun comes forth to view. ' 
 o 4
 
 200 A NIGHT IN A STAGE-COACH. 
 
 The Jiills, the vales, the waters burn 
 With his enkindling rays, i j 
 
 No sooner touch'd than they return , 
 A tributary blaze. 
 
 His quickening light on me descends. 
 
 His cheering warmth I ownj i] 
 
 Upward to. him my spirit tends, iud gtl 
 
 But worships God alone. A — 
 
 Oh! that on me, widi beams benign, 
 
 His countenance would turn ; ;;' 
 
 I too should then arise and shine, ;iii /f 
 
 — Arise, and shine, and burn. . :}'i\ 
 
 Slowly I raise my languid head ; 
 
 Pain and soul-sickness cease, x. .! 
 
 The phantoms of dismay are fled, , ; 
 
 And health returns, and peace, ^^b a^f 1
 
 A NIGHT IN A STAGE-COACH. 201 
 
 Where is the beauty of the scene. 
 
 Which silent night display'd ? 
 The clouds, the stars, the blue serene. 
 
 The moving light and shade ? 
 
 All gone ! — the moon, erewhile so bright, 
 
 Veil'd with a dusky shroud, 
 Seems, in the sun's o'erpowering light, 
 
 The fragment of a cloud. 
 
 At length, I reach my journey's end ; 
 
 —Welcome that well-known face ! 
 I meet a brother and a friend ; 
 
 I find a resting-place. 
 
 Just such a pilgrimage is life ; 
 
 Hurried from stage to stage. 
 Our wishes with our lot at strife, 
 
 Through childhood to old age.
 
 202 A NIGHT IN A STAGE-COACH. 
 
 The world is seldom what it seems ;— 
 
 To man, who dimly sees, 
 Realities appear as dreams, 
 
 And dreams realities. 
 
 The christian's years, though slow their flight, 
 
 When he is call'd away. 
 Are but the watches of a night. 
 
 And Death the dawn of day.
 
 THE REIGN OF SPRING. 
 
 yVuo loves not Spring's voluptuous hours. 
 The carnival of birds and flowers ? 
 Yet who would chuse, however dear, 
 That Spring should revel all the year ? 
 —Who loves not Summer's splendid reign^ 
 The bridal of the earth and main 
 Yet who would chuse, however bright, 
 A Dog-day noon without a night ? 
 — Who loves not Autumn's joyous round. 
 When com, and wine, and oil abound ? 
 Yet who would chuse, however gay, 
 A year of unrenewed decay ? 
 — Who loves not Winter's awefiil form ? 
 The sphere-bom music of the storm ?
 
 204 THE REIGN OF SPRING. 
 
 Yet who would chuse, how grand so ever, 
 The shortest day to last for ever ? 
 
 'Twas in that age renown'd, remote. 
 When all was true that Esop wrote ; 
 And in that land of fair Ideal, 
 Where all that poets dream is real ; 
 Upon a day of annual state. 
 The Seasons met in high debate. 
 There blush'd young Spring in maiden-pride, 
 Blithe Summer look'd a gorgeous bride. 
 Staid Autumn moved with matron-grace, 
 And beldame Winter pursed her face. 
 Dispute grew wild ; all talk'd together j 
 The foiu* at once made wondrous weather j 
 Nor one, (whate'er the rest had shewn,) 
 Heard any reason but her own. 
 While each, (for nothing else was clear,) 
 Claim'd the whole circle of the year. 
 
 Spring, in possession of the field, 
 Compell'd her sisters soon to yield ;
 
 THE REIGN OF SPRING. 206 
 
 They part, — resolved elsewhere to try 
 
 A twelve-month's empire of the sky ; 
 
 And calling oflF their airy legions, 
 
 Alighted in adjacent regions. 
 
 Spring o'er the eastern champaign smiled, 
 
 Fell Winter ruled the northern wild ; ^ 
 
 Summer pursued the sun's red car, 
 
 But Autumn loved the twilight star. 
 
 As Spring parades her new domain, 
 Love, Beauty, Pleasure, hold her train ; 
 Her footsteps wake the flowers beneath, 
 That start, and blush, and sweetly breathe ; 
 Her gales on nimble pinions rove. 
 And shake to foliage every grove ; 
 Her voice, in dell and thicket heard. 
 Cheers on the nest the mother-bird ; 
 The ice-lock'd streams, as if they felt 
 Her touch, to liquid diamond melt ; 
 The lambs around her bleat and play ; 
 The serpent flings his slough away,
 
 208 THE REIGN OF SPRINGS 
 
 And shines, in orient colours dight, 
 A flexile ray of living light. 
 Nature luibinds her wintry jshroud, 
 (As the soft sunshine melts the cloud,) 
 With infant gambols sports along, 
 Bounds into youth, and soars in song. 
 The morn impearls her locks with dew ; 
 Noon spreads a sky of boundless blue ; 
 The rainbow spans the evening scene, 
 The night is silent and serene, 
 Save when her lonely minstrel wrings 
 The heart with sweetness, while he sings. 
 — Who would not wish, unrivall'd here, 
 That Spring might frolic all the year ? 
 
 Three months are fled, and still she reigns, 
 Exulting queen o'er hills and plains ; 
 The birds renew their nuptial vow. 
 Nestlings themselves are lovers now ; 
 Fresh broods each bending bough receives. 
 Till fealiiers far outnumber leaves |
 
 THE REIGN OF SPRING. 207 
 
 But kites in circles swim the air. 
 
 And sadden music to despair. 
 
 The stagnant pools, the quaking bogs. 
 
 Teem, croak, and crawl with hordes of frogs; 
 
 The matted woods, the' infected earth, 
 
 Are venomous with reptile-birth ; 
 
 Armies of locusts cloud the skies ; 
 
 With beetles hornets, gnats with flies, 
 
 Interminable warfare wage, 
 
 And madden heaven with insect-rage.> i nf; 
 
 The flowers are wither'd ; — sun nor dew 
 Their fallen glories shall renew; 
 The flowers are wither'd ; — germ nor seed 
 Ripen in garden, wild, or mead : 
 The cornfields shoot ; — their blades, alas ! 
 Run riot in luxuriant grass. 
 The tainted flocks, the drooping kine, 
 In famine of abundance pine. 
 Where vegetation, sour, unsound. 
 And loathsome, rots, and rankles round ;
 
 ^8 THE REIGN OF SPRING. 
 
 Nature with nature seems at strife ; 
 Nothing can live but monstrous life, 
 By death engender'd; — food and breath 
 Are tum'd to elements of death ; 
 And where the soil his victims strew, 
 Corruption quickens them anew. 
 
 But ere the year was half expired. 
 Spring saw her folly, and retired ; 
 Yoked her light chariot to a breeze, 
 And mounted to the Pleiades,* 
 Content with them to rest or play 
 Along the calm nocturnal way ; 
 Till hediVen's remaining circuit run, 
 They meet the pale hybemal sun, 
 And gaily mingling in his blaze, 
 Ebil the true dawn of vernal days.
 
 THE REIGN OF SUMMER. 
 
 1 HE hurricanes are fled ; the rains, 
 
 That plough'd the mountains, wreck'd the plains, 
 
 Have pass'd away before the wind. 
 
 And left a wilderness behind. 
 
 As if an ocean had been there 
 
 Exhaled, and left its channels bare. 
 
 But, with a new and sudden birth, 
 
 Nature replenishes the earth ; 
 
 Plants, flowers, and shrubs, o'er all the land, 
 
 So promptly rise, so thickly stand, 
 
 As if they heard a voice, — and came, 
 
 Each at the calling of its name. 
 
 The tree, by tempests stript and rent. 
 
 Expands its verdure like a tent,
 
 210 THE REIGN OF SUMMER. 
 
 Beneath whose shade, in weary length, 
 
 The* enormous lion rests his strength, 
 
 For blood, in dreams of hunting, burns, 
 
 Or, chased himself, to fight returns ; 
 
 Growls in his sleep, a dreary sound, 
 
 Grinds his wedged teeth, and spurns the ground ; 
 
 While monkeys, in grotesque amaze, 
 
 Down from their bending perches gaze. 
 
 But when he lifts his eye of fire. 
 
 Quick to the topmost boughs retire. 
 
 Loud o'er the mountains bleat the flocks ; 
 The goat is bounding on the rocks ; 
 Far in the valleys range the herds ;^9« & a i 
 The welkin gleams with flitting birds, l^i *rr«li*K 
 Whose plumes such gorgeous tints adorn, i^ 
 
 They seem the oflfepring of the morn. 
 From nectar'd flowers and groves of spice, 
 Earth breathes the air of Paradise ; 
 -Her mines their hidden weaith betray, 
 Treasures of darkness burst to day ;
 
 .THE REIGN OF SUMMER. - t^l 
 
 0*er golden sands the rivers glide, 
 And pearls and amber track the tide. 
 Of every sensual bliss possest, 
 Man riots here ; . — but is he blest ? 
 And would he chuse, for eVer bright, 
 This Summer-day without a night? 
 For here hath Summer fix'd her throne, 
 Intent to reign, — and reign alone. 
 
 Daily the sun, in his career. 
 Hotter and higher, climbs the sphere, 
 Till from the zenith, in his rays. 
 Without a cloud or shadow, blaze 
 The realms beneath him: — in his march. 
 On the blue key-stone of heaven's arch, 
 He stands: — air, earth, and ocean lie 
 Within the presence of his eye. 
 The wheel of Nature seems to rest, 
 Nor rolls him onward to the west. 
 Till, thrice three days of noon unchanged 
 That torrid clime have so deranged, 
 PS
 
 2*2 THE REIGN OF SUMMER. 
 
 Nine years may not the wrong repair ; 
 But Summer checks the ravage there; 
 Yet still enjoins the sun to steer 
 By the stem Dog star round the year. 
 With dire extremes of day and night, 
 Tartarean gloom, celestial light. 
 
 In vain the gaudy season shines, 
 Her beauty fades, her power declines ; 
 Then first her bosom felt a care ; 
 — No healing breeze embalm'd the air, 
 No mist the mountain tops bedew'd. 
 Nor shower the arid vale renew'd ; 
 The herbage shnmk ; the ploughman's toil 
 Scatter'd to dust the crumbling soil ; 
 Blossoms were shed ; the' umbrageous wood, 
 Laden with sapless foliage, stood; 
 The streams, impoverish'd day by day, 
 Lessen'd insensibly away ; 
 Where cattle sought, with piteous moans, 
 The vanish'd lymph, midst burning stones.
 
 THE REIGN OF SUMMER. 218 
 
 And tufts of wither'd reeds, that fill 
 The wonted channel of the rill ; 
 Till, stung with hornets, mad with thirst, 
 In sudden rout, away they burst. 
 Nor rest, till where some channel deep 
 Gleams in small pools, whose waters sleep ; 
 There with huge draught and eager eye 
 Drink for existence, — drink and die ! 
 
 But direr evils soon arose. 
 Hopeless, unmitigable woes ; 
 Man proves the shock ; through all his veins, 
 The frenzy of the season reigns ; 
 With pride, lust, rage, ambition blind, 
 He burns in every fire of mind. 
 Which kindles from insane desire. 
 Or fellest hatred can inspire ; 
 Reckless whatever ill befall, 
 He dares to do and suffer all 
 That heart can think, that arm can deal, 
 Or out of hell a fury fe^. 
 p3
 
 214 THE REIGN OF SUMMER. 
 
 There stood in that romantic clime, 
 A mountain awefully sublime; 
 O'er many a league the basement spread. 
 It tower'd in many an airy head, 
 Height over height, — now gay, now wild, 
 The peak with ice eternal piled; 
 Pure in mid-heaven, that crystal cone 
 A diadem of glory shone ; 
 Reflecting, in the night-fall'n sky, 
 The beams of day's departed eye ; 
 Or holding, ere the dawn begim. 
 Communion with the' unrisen sun. 
 The cultured sides were clothed with woods, 
 Vineyards, and fields, or track'd with floods. 
 Whose glacier-fountains, hid on high. 
 Sent down their rivers from the sky. 
 O'er plains, that mark'd its gradual scale. 
 On sunny slope, in shelter'd vale, 
 Earth's universal tenant, — He, 
 Who lives wherever life may be.
 
 THE REIGN OF SUMMER. 215 
 
 Sole, social, fix'd, or free to roam. 
 Always and every where at home, 
 Man pitch'd his tents, adorn'd his bowers, 
 Built temples, palaces, and towers, 
 And made that Alpine world his own, 
 — The miniature of every zone. 
 From brown savannahs parch'd below 
 To ridges of cerulean snow. 
 
 Those high-lands form'd a last retreat 
 From rabid Summer's fatal heatijua^ «;4i]^-! 
 Though not unfelt her fervours there. 
 Vernal and cool the middle air ; 
 While from the icy pyramid 
 Streams of unfailing freshness slid. 
 That long had slaked the thirsty land. 
 Till avarice, with insatiate hand, ^ 
 
 Their currents check'd ; in sunless caves. 
 And rock-bound dells, ingulph'd the waves. 
 And thence in scanty measures doled. 
 Or turn'd heaven's bounty into gold. 
 f4
 
 216 THE REIGN OF SUMMER. 
 
 Ere long the dwellers on the plain 
 Murmur'd; — their murmurs were in vain; 
 Petition'd, — but their prayers were spurn'd; 
 Threaten'd, — defiance was return'dj 
 Then rang both regions with alarms ; 
 Blood-kindling trumpets blew to arms ; 
 The maddening drum and deafening fife 
 Marshall'd the elements of strife : 
 Sternly the mountaineers maintain 
 Their rights against the' insurgent plain ; 
 The plain's indignant myriads rose 
 To wrest the mountain from their foes, 
 Resolved its blessings to enjoy 
 By dint of valour; — or destroy. 
 
 The legions met in war-array ; 
 The mountaineers brook'd no delay, 
 Aside their missile weapons threw. 
 From holds impregnable withdrew. 
 And, rashly brave, with sword and shield, 
 Rush'd headlong to tne open field.
 
 THE REIGN OF SUMMER. 217 
 
 Their foes the' auspicious omen took, 
 
 And raised a battle- shout, that shook 
 
 The champaign: — staunch and keen for blood, 
 
 Front threatening front, the columns stood, 
 
 But, while like thimder- clouds they frown, 
 
 In tropic haste the sun went down ; 
 
 Night o'er both armies stretch'd her tent. 
 
 The star-bespangled firmament, 
 
 Whose placid host, revolving slow. 
 
 Smile on the' impatient hordes below, 
 
 That chafe and fret the hours away. 
 
 Curse the dull gloom, and long for day. 
 
 Though destined by their own decree 
 
 No other day nor night to see. 
 
 — That night is past, that day begun, 
 
 Swifl as he sunk ascends the sun. 
 
 And from the red horizon springs 
 
 Upward, as borne on eagle-wings ; 
 
 Aslant each army's lengthen'd lines. 
 O'er shields and helms he proudly shines,
 
 21 S THE REIGN OF SUMMER. 
 
 While spears, that catch his lightnings keen, 
 
 Flash them athwart the space between. 
 
 Before the battle-shock, when breath 
 
 And pulse are still, — awaiting death; 
 
 In that cold pause, which seems to be 
 
 The prelude to eternity. 
 
 When fear, ere yet a blow is dealt, 
 
 Betray'd by none, by all is felt ; 
 
 While, moved beneath their feet, the tomb 
 
 Widens her lap to make them room ; 
 
 — Till, in the onset of the fray. 
 
 Fear, feeling, thought are cast away. 
 
 And foaming, raging, mingling foes. 
 
 Like billows dash'd in conflict, close. 
 
 Charge, strike, repel, wound, struggle, fly, 
 
 Gloriously win, unconquer'd die; — -. 
 
 Here, in dread silence, while they stand, 
 
 Each with a death-stroke in his hand, 
 
 His eye fix'd forward, and his ear 
 
 Tingling the signal blast to hear ;
 
 THE REIGN OF SUMMER. 21d 
 
 The trumpet sounds; — one note, — no more; 
 The field, the fight, the war is o'er ; 
 An earthquake rent the void between ; 
 A moment shew'd, and shut the scene ; 
 Men, chariots, steeds, — of either host, 
 The flower, the pride, the strength were lost : 
 A solitude remains; — the dead 
 Are buried there; — the living fled. 
 
 Nor yet the reign of Summer closed : 
 — At night in their own homes reposed 
 The fugitives, on either side, 
 
 Who 'scaped the death their comrades died ; 
 
 When lo ! with many a giddy shock. 
 
 The mountain-cliffs began to rock. 
 
 And deep below the hollow ground 
 
 Ran a strange mystery of sound. 
 
 As if, in chains and torments there, 
 
 Spirits were venting their despair. 
 
 That sound, those shocks the sleepers woke ; 
 
 In trembihig consternation, broke
 
 220 THE REIGN OF SUMMER. 
 
 Forth from their dwellings, young and old ; 
 — Nothing abroad their eyes behold 
 But darkness so intensely wrought, 
 'Twas blindness in themselves they thought. 
 Anon, aloof, with sudden rays> 
 Issued so fierce, so broad a blaze. 
 That darkness started into light, 
 And every eye, restored to sight. 
 Gazed on the glittering crest of snows. 
 Whence the bright conflagration rose, 
 Whose flames condensed at once aspire, 
 — A pillar of celestial fire, 
 Alone amidst infernal shade, 
 In glorious majesty display'd : 
 Beneath, jfrom rifted caverns broke 
 Volumes of suiFocating smoke. 
 That roll'd in surges, like a flood, 
 By the red radiance tum'd to blood. 
 Mom look'd aghast upon the scene, 
 Nor could a sun-beam pierce between
 
 THE REIGN OF SUMMER. 221 
 
 The panoply of vapours, spread 
 
 Above, around the moimtain's head. 
 
 In distant fields, with drought consumed, 
 
 Joy swell'd all heaits, all eyes illumed, 
 
 When from that peak, through lowering skies, 
 
 Thick curling clouds were seen to rise, 
 
 And hang o'er all the darken'd plain. 
 
 The presage of descending rain. 
 
 The' exulting cattle bound along. 
 
 The tuneless birds attempt a song, 
 
 The swain, amidst his sterile lands. 
 
 With outstretcht arms of rapture stands. 
 
 But, fraught with plague and curses, came 
 
 The' insidious progeny of flame : 
 
 Ah ! then, — for fertilizing showei-s, 
 
 The pledge of herbage, fruits, and floweis, — 
 
 Words cannot paint, how eveiy eye, 
 
 (Blood-shot and dim with agony,) 
 
 Was glazed, as by a palsying spell, 
 
 When light sulphureous ashes fell,
 
 222 THE REIGN OF SUMMER. 
 
 Dazzling, and eddying to and fro, 
 Like wildering sleet or feathery snow : 
 Strewn with grey pumice Nature lies, 
 At every motion quick to rise, 
 Tainting with livid fumes the air ; 
 — Then hope lies down in prone despair, 
 And man and beast, with misery dimib, 
 Sullenly brood on woes to come. 
 
 The mountain now, like living earth. 
 Pregnant with some stupendous bu*th, 
 Heaved, in the anguish of its throes. 
 Sheer from its crest the' incumbent snows 
 And where of old they chill'd the sky. 
 Beneath the sun's meridian eye, 
 Or, purpling in the golden west, 
 Appear'd his evening throne of rest, 
 There, black and bottomless and wide, ' 
 
 i 
 
 A cauldron rent from side to side, 
 Simmer'd and hiss'd with huge turmoil ; 
 Earth's disembow^ell'd minerals boil,
 
 THE REIGN OF SUMxMER. 223 
 
 And thence in molten torrents rush : 
 — Water and fire, like sisters, gush 
 From the same source ; the double stream 
 Meets, battles, and explodes in steam ; 
 Then fire prevails ; and broad and deep 
 Red lava roars from steep to steep ; 
 While rocks unseated, woods upriven, 
 Are headlong down the current driven ; 
 Columnar flames are rapt aloof, 
 In whirlwind forms, to heaven's high roof 
 And there, amidst transcendent gloom, 
 Image the wrath beyond the tomb. 
 
 The mountaineers, in wild aflFright, 
 Too late for safety, urge their flight ; 
 Women, made childless in the fray, 
 Women, made mothers yesterday. 
 The sick, the aged, and the blind ; 
 — None but the dead are left behind. 
 Painful their journey, toilsome, slow ; 
 Beneadi their feet quick embers glow,
 
 224 THE REIGN OF SUMMER. 
 
 And hurtle round in dreadful hail ; 
 
 Their limbs, their hearts, their senses fail, 
 
 While many a victim, by the way. 
 
 Buried alive in ashes lay, 
 
 Or perish'd by the lightning's stroke. 
 
 Before the slower thunder broke. 
 
 A few the open field explore ; ^kv i ouci tv 
 
 The throng seek refuge on the shore. 
 
 Between two burning rivers hemm'd, 
 
 Whose rage nor mounds nor hollows stemm'd ; 
 
 Driven like a herd of deer, they reach 
 
 The lonely, dark^ and silent beach, at ji»*M«.l 
 
 Where, calm as innocence in sleep. 
 
 Expanded lies the' unconscious deep. 
 
 Awhile the fugitives respire, 
 
 And watch those cataracts of fire .\'mu> ft 
 
 (That bar escape on either hand,) ' 
 
 Rush on the ocean from the strand j 
 
 Back from the onset rolls the tide, jj'^-l 
 
 But instant cloud» the conflict hide ;
 
 THE REIGN OF SUMMER. 225 
 
 The lavas plunge to gulphs unknown, 
 And as they plunge relapse to stone. 
 Meanwhile the mad volcano grew 
 Tenfold more terrible to view ; 
 And thunders, such as shall be hurl'd > 
 At the death -sentence of the world; 
 And lightnings, such as shall consume 
 Creation, and creation's tomb, 
 Nor leave, amidst the' eternal void, 
 One trembling atom undestroy'd ; 
 Such thunders crash'd, such lightnings glared : 
 — Another fate those outcasts shared. 
 When, with one desolating sweep, 
 An earthquake seem'd to' ingulph the deep, 
 Then threw it back, and from its bed 
 Hung a whole ocean overhead ; 
 The victims shriek'd beneath the wave. 
 And in a moment found one grave ; 
 Down to the' abyss the flood retum'd ; 
 Alone, unseen, the mountani burn'd. 
 8
 
 INCOGNITA: 
 
 Written at Leamington, in 1817, on viewing the Picture 
 of an unknown Lady, 
 
 " Sbe was a phantom of delight."— Wordsworth. 
 
 Image of One, who lived of yore ! 
 
 Hail to that lovely mien, 
 Once quick and conscious ; — now no more 
 
 On land or ocean seen ! 
 Were all earth's breathing forms to pass 
 Before me in Agrippa's glass,* 
 Many as fair as Thou might be. 
 But Oh ! not one, — not one like Thee. 
 
 * Henry Cornelius Agrippa, of Nettesheim, counsellor to 
 Charles V. Emperor of Germany, — the author of Occult Phi- 
 losophy, and other profound works, — is said to have shewn 
 to the Earl of Surrey the image of his mistress Geraldine, in 
 a magical mirror.
 
 INCOGNITA. 227 
 
 Thou ai't no Child of Fancy ; — Thou 
 
 The very look dost wear, 
 That gave enchantment to a brow, 
 
 Wreathed with luxuriant hair ; 
 Lips of the morn embathed in dew. 
 And eyes of evening's starry blue ; 
 Of all who e'er enjoy'd the sun, 
 Thou art tlie image of but One, 
 
 And who was she, in virgin prime. 
 
 And May of womanhood, 
 Whose roses here, unpluck'd by Time, 
 
 In shadowy tints have stood ; 
 While many a winter's withering blast 
 Hath o'er the dark cold chamber pass'd, 
 In which her once-resplendent form 
 Slumber'd to dust beneath the storm ? 
 
 Of gentle blood; — upon her birth. 
 
 Consenting planets smiled. 
 And she had seen those days of mirth, 
 
 That frolic round the child ; 
 S2
 
 228 INCOGNITA. 
 
 To bridal bloom her strength had sprung, 
 Behold her beautiful and young ! 
 Lives there a record, which hath told, 
 That she was wedded, widow'd, old ? 
 
 How long her date, 'twere vain to guess 
 
 The pencil's cunning art 
 Can but a single glance express. 
 
 One motion of the heart ; 
 A smile, a blush, — a transient grace 
 Of air, and attitude, and face ; 
 One passion's changing colour mix ; 
 One moment's flight for ages fix. 
 
 Her joys and griefs, alike in vain 
 
 Would fancy here recall ; 
 Her throbs of exstacy or pain 
 
 Lull'd in oblivion all; 
 With her, methinks, life's httle hour 
 Pass'd like the fragrance of a flower, 
 That leaves upon the vernal wind 
 Sweetness we ne'er again may find.
 
 INCOGNITA. 229 
 
 Where dwelt she ? — Ask yon aged tree, 
 
 Whose boughs embower the lawn, 
 Whether the birds' wild minstrelsy 
 
 Awoke her here at dawn ; 
 Whether beneath its youthful shade, 
 At noon, in infancy she play'd ; 
 — If from the oak no answer come, 
 Of her all oracles are dumb. 
 
 The Dead are like the stars by day; 
 
 — Withdrawn from mortal eye, 
 But not extinct, they hold their way. 
 
 In glory through the sky : 
 Spirits, from bondage thus set free. 
 Vanish amidst immensity. 
 Where human thought, like human sight. 
 Fails to pursue their trackless flight. 
 
 Somewhere within created space. 
 
 Could I explore that round, 
 In bliss, or woe, there is a place. 
 
 Where she might still be found ; 
 Q S
 
 230 INCOGNITA. 
 
 And oh ! unless those eyes deceive, 
 I may, I must, I will believe, 
 That she, whose charms so meekly glow. 
 Is what she only seem'd below ; — 
 
 An angel in that glorious realm, 
 Where God himself is King : 
 
 — But awe and fear, that overwhelm 
 Presumption, check my wing ; 
 
 Nor dare imagination look 
 
 Upon the symbols of that book. 
 
 Wherein eternity enrolls 
 
 The judgements on departed souls. 
 
 Of Her, of whom these pictured lines 
 
 A faint resemblance form ; 
 —Fair as the second rainbow shines 
 
 Aloof amid the storm ; 
 Of Her, this " shadow of a shade," 
 Like its original must fade. 
 And She, forgotten when imseen, 
 Shall be as if she ne'er had been.
 
 INCOGNITA. 231 
 
 Ah ! then, perchance, this dreaming strain, // 
 Of all that e'er I sung, : ithmli 
 
 A lorn memorial may remain. 
 When silent lies my tongue ; 
 
 When shot the meteor of my fame, 
 
 Lost the vain echo of my name, : j - 
 
 This leaf, this fallen lea^ may be 
 
 Tlie only trace of her and me. ^"/ 
 
 AN AFTER -THOUGHT. 
 
 With One who lived of old, my song 
 
 In lowly cadence rose ; 
 To One who is unborn, belong 
 
 The accents of its close : 
 Ages to come, with courteous ear, 
 Some youth my warning voice may hear ; 
 And voices from the dead should be 
 The warnings of eternity. 
 2 4
 
 232 INCOGNITA. 
 
 When these weak lines thy presence greet, 
 
 Reader ! if I am blest, 
 Again, as spirits, may we meet 
 
 In glory and in rest : 
 If not, — and /have lost my way. 
 Here part we ; — go not Thou astray ; 
 No tomb, no verse my story tell ! 
 Once, and for ever. Fare Thee welL
 
 THE LITTLE CLOUD, 
 
 Seen in a Country Excursion, June 30, 1818, 
 
 The summer smi was in the west, 
 Yet far above his evening rest ; 
 A thousand clouds in air displayed 
 Their floating isles of light and shade, 
 The sky, like ocean's channels, seen 
 In long meandering streaks between. 
 
 Cultured and waste, the landscape lay ; 
 Woods, mountains, valleys stretch'd away, 
 And throng'd the' inmaense horizon round, 
 With heaven's eternal girdle bound : 
 From inland towns, eclipsed with smoke. 
 Steeples in lonely grandeur broke ;
 
 234 THE LITTLE CLOUD. 
 
 Hamlets, and cottages, and streams 
 
 By glimpses caught the casual gleams, 
 
 Or blazed in lustre broad and strong, 
 
 Beyond the picturing powers of song : 
 
 O'er all the eye enchanted ranged. 
 
 While colours, forms, proportions changed, 
 
 Or sunk in distance undefined. 
 
 Still as our devious course inclined; 
 
 — And oft we paused, and look'd behind. 
 
 One little cloud, and only one, 
 Seem'd the pure offspring of the sun. 
 Flung from his orb to shew us here 
 What clouds adorn his hemisphere ; 
 Unmoved, unchanging, in the gale. 
 That bore the rest o'er hill and dale, v fo; i i 
 
 Whose shadowy shapes, with lights around, 
 Like living motions, swept the groimd. > h 
 
 This Uttle cloud, and this alone, 
 Long in the highest ether shone ;♦ r.'novB • 
 Gay as a warrior's banner spread. 
 Its sunward margin ruby-red. 
 
 I
 
 THE LITTLE CLOUD. 235 
 
 Green, purple, gold, and every hue, 
 That glitters in the morning dew, 
 Or glows along the rainbow's form, 
 — The apparition of the storm. 
 Deep in its bosom, diamond-bright. 
 Behind a fleece of pearly white. 
 It seem'd a secret glory dwielt, 
 Whose presence, while unseen, was felt ; 
 Like Beauty's eye, in slumber hid 
 Beneath a half-transparent lid. 
 From whence a sound, a touch, a breath, 
 Might startle it, — as life from death. 
 Looks, words, emotions of surprize 
 Welcomed the stranger to our eyes : 
 Was it the phoenix, that from earth 
 In flames of incense sprang to birth ? 
 Had ocean from his lap let fly 
 His loveliest halcyon through the sky ? 
 No : — while we gazed, the pageant grew 
 A nobler object to our view j
 
 236 THE LITTLE CLOUD. 
 
 We deem'd, if heaven with earth would hold 
 Communion, as in days of old, 
 Such, on his journey down the sphere, 
 Benignant Raphael might appear. 
 In splendid mystery conceal'd, 
 Yet by his rich disguise reveal'd : 
 — That buoyant vapour, in mid-air, 
 An angel in its folds might bear. 
 Who, through the curtain of his shrine, 
 Betray'd his lineaments divine. 
 The wild, the warm illusion stole, 
 Like inspiration, o'er the soul, 
 Till thought was rapture, language hung, 
 Silent but trembling on the tongue ; 
 And fancy almost hoped to hail 
 The seraph rushing through his veil, 
 Or hear an awfiil voice proclaim 
 The embassy on which he came. 
 But ah ! no minister of grace 
 Shew'd from the firmament his face,
 
 THE LITTLE CLOUD. 237 
 
 Nor, borne aloof on balanced wings, 
 Reveal'd unutterable things. 
 The sun went down ; — the vision pass'd ; 
 The cloud was but a cloud at last ; 
 Yet when its brilliancy decay'd. 
 The eye still linger'd on the shade. 
 And watching, till no longer seen, 
 Loved it for what it once had been. 
 
 That cloud was beautiful, — was one 
 Among a thousand round the sun ; 
 The thousand shared the common lot ; 
 They came, — they went, — they were forgot; 
 This fairy-form alone impress'd 
 Its perfect image in my breast, 
 And shines as richly blazon'd there 
 As in its element of air. 
 
 The day on which that cloud appear'd. 
 Exhilarating scenes endear'd : 
 — The sunshine on the hills, the floods ; 
 The breeze, the twilight of the woods ;
 
 238 THE LITTLE CLOUD. 
 
 Nature in every change of green, 
 
 Heaven in unnumber'd aspects seen : 
 
 Health, spirits, exercise, release 
 
 From noise and smoke ; twelve hours of peace ; 
 
 No fears to haunt^ no cares to vex ; 
 
 Friends, young and old, of either sex ; 
 
 Converse familiar, sportive, kind. 
 
 Where heart meets heart, mind quickens mind. 
 
 And words and thoughts are all at play. 
 
 Like children on a holiday ; 
 
 — Till themes celestial rapt the soul 
 
 In adoration o'er the pole. 
 
 Where stars are darkness in His sight, 
 
 Who reigns invisible in Hght, 
 
 High above all created things, 
 
 The Lord of Lords, the King of Kings ; 
 
 Faith, which could thus on wing sublime 
 
 Outsoar the boimded flight of time ; 
 
 Hope full of immortality, 
 
 And God in all the eye could see ; 
 
 — These, these endear'd that day to me,
 
 THE LITTLE CLOUD. 239 
 
 And made it, in a thousand ways, ^ 
 
 A day among a thousand days, 
 
 That share with clouds the common lot ; 
 
 They come, — they go, — they are forgot: 
 
 This, like that plaything of the sun, 
 
 — The little, lonely, lovely one. 
 
 This lives within me; — this shall be ^''' 
 
 A part of my eternity. ^1 
 
 Amidst the cares, the toils, the strife. 
 The weariness and waste of life. 
 That day shall memory oft restore. 
 And in a moment live it o'er. 
 When, with a lightning-flash of thought, 
 Morn, noon, and eve at once are brought, 
 (As through the vision of a trance,) 
 All in the compass of a glance. 
 
 Oh 1 should I reach a world above, 
 And sometirnes think of those I love, 
 Of things on earth too dearly prized, 
 (Nor yet by saints in heaven despised,)
 
 240 THE LITTLE CLOUD. 
 
 Though Spirits made perfect may lament 
 Life's holier hours as half-mispent, 
 Methinks I could not turn away 
 The fond remembrance of that day, 
 The bright idea of that cloud, 
 • (Survivor of a countless crowds) 
 Without a pause, perhaps a sigh, — 
 To think such loveliness should die. 
 And clouds and days of storm and gloom 
 Scowl on Man's passage to the tomb. 
 — Not so : — I feel I have a heart 
 Blessings to share, improve, impart, ' 
 In blithe, severe, or pensive mood, 
 At home, abroad, in solitude. 
 Whatever clouds are on the wing. 
 Whatever day the seasons bring. 
 TTiat is true happiness below^ 
 Which conscience cannot turn to woe ; 
 And though such happiness depends 
 Neither on clouds, nor days, nor friends.
 
 THE LITTLE CLOUD. 241 
 
 fVheti friends, and days, and clouds unite. 
 And kindi'cd chords are tuned aright, 
 The harmonies of heaven and earth. 
 Through eye, ear, intellect, give birth 
 To joys too exquisite to last, 
 — And yet more exquisite when past ! 
 "When the soul summons by a spell 
 The ghosts of pleasures round her cell, 
 
 In saintlier forms than erst they wore, 
 
 And smiles benigner than before; 
 
 Each loved, lamented scene renews 
 
 With warmer touches, tenderer hues ; 
 
 Recalls kind words for ever flown. 
 
 But echoing in a soften'd tone ; 
 
 "Wakes, with new pulses in the breast. 
 
 Feelings forgotten or at rest; 
 
 — The thought how fugitive and fair, 
 
 How dear and precious such things were ! 
 
 That thought, with gladness more refined, 
 Deep and transportbig, thrills the mind, 
 
 B
 
 242 ' THE LITTLE CLOUD. 
 
 Than all those pleasures of an hour^ 
 When most the soul confess'd their power. 
 
 Bliss in possession will not last ; 
 Remember'd joys are never past; 
 At once the fountain, stream, and sea, 
 They were, — they are, — they yet shall be.
 
 TO BRITAIN. 
 
 The following Address was the concluding Part of a 
 Poem, entitled "Thoughts on Wheels," annexed 
 to a Work, written by a friend of the Author, to 
 expose the evils of the State Lottery.* 
 
 1 LOVE Thee, O my native Isle ! 
 Dear as my mother's earliest smile ; 
 Sweet as my father's voice to me 
 Is all I hear, and all I see, 
 When, glancing o'er thy beauteous land, 
 In view thy Public Virtues stand, 
 The guardian angels of thy coast. 
 Who watch the dear domestic Host, 
 
 * The State LoTTsaY, A Dream ; by Samuel Roberts : — 
 Also, Thoughts on Wheels, a Poem, in Five Parts, by J. M. 
 
 b2
 
 244 TO BRITAIN. 
 
 The Heart's Affections, pleased to roam 
 Around the quiet heaven of home. 
 
 I love Thee, — when I mark thy soil 
 Flourish beneath the peasant's toil, 
 And from its lap of verdure throw 
 Treasures, which neither Indies know. 
 
 I love Thee, — when I hear around 
 Thy looms, and wheels, and anvils sound, • 
 Thine engines heaving all their force. 
 Thy waters labouring on their course, 
 And arts, and industry, and wealth 
 Exulting in the joys of health. 
 
 I love Thee, — when I trace thy tale 
 To the dim point where records fail ; 
 Thy deeds of old renown inspire 
 My bosom with our fathers' fire ; 
 A proud inheritance I claim 
 In all their sufferings, all their fame ; 
 Nor less delighted when I stray 
 Down history's lengthening, widening way.
 
 TO BRITAIN. 245 
 
 And hail Thee in thy present hour, 
 From the meridian arch of power, 
 Shedding the lustre of thy reign. 
 Like sunshine, over land and main. 
 
 I love Thee, — when I read the lays 
 Of British bards in elder days, 
 Till, rapt on visionary wings. 
 High o'er thy cliffs my spirit sings ; 
 For I, among thy living choir, 
 I, too, can touch the sacred lyre. 
 
 I love Thee, — when I contemplate 
 The full-orb'd grandeur of thy state ; 
 Thy laws and liberties, that rise, 
 Man's noblest works beneath the skies. 
 To which the pyramids were tame, 
 And Grecian temples bow their fame : 
 These, thine immortal sages wrought 
 Out of the deepest mines of thought; 
 These, on the scaffold, in the field. 
 Thy warriors won, thy patriots seai'd;
 
 246 TO BRITAIN. 
 
 These, at the pairicidal pyre, 
 
 Thy martyrs sanctified in fire. 
 
 And, with the generous blood they spilt, 
 
 Wash'd fi-om thy soil their murderers' guilt, 
 
 Cancell'd the curse which vengeance sped. 
 
 And left a blessing in its stead. 
 
 — Can words, can numbers count the price. 
 
 Paid for this little paradise ? 
 
 Never, oh ! never be it lost ; 
 
 The land is worth the price it cost. 
 
 I love Thee, — when thy sabbath dawns 
 O'er woods and mountains, dales and lawns. 
 And streams, that sparkle while they run, 
 As if their fountain were the sun ; 
 When, hand in hand, thy tribes repair. 
 Each to their chosen house of prayer, 
 And all in peace and freedom call 
 On Him, who is the Lord of all. 
 
 I love Thee, — when ray soul can feel 
 The seraph-ardours of thy zeal:
 
 TO BRITAIN. 247 
 
 Thy charities, to none confined. 
 Bless, like the sun, the rain, the wind ; 
 Thy schools the human brute shall raise. 
 Guide erring youth in wisdom's ways, 
 And leave, when we are tum'd to dust, 
 A generation of the just. 
 
 I love Thee, — when I see Thee stand 
 The hope of every other land ; 
 A sea-mark in the tide of time, 
 Rearing to heaven thy brow sublime ; 
 Whence beams of gospel -splendour shed 
 A sacred halo round thine head ; 
 And gentiles from afar behold, 
 (Not as on Sinai's rocks of old,) 
 GOD, — from eternity conceal'd, — 
 In his own light, on Thee reveal'd. 
 
 I love Thee, — when I hear thy voice 
 Bid a despairing world rejoice, 
 And loud from shore to shore proclaim, 
 In every tongue, Messiah's name ;
 
 248 TO BRITAIN. 
 
 That name, at which, from sea to sea, 
 All nations yet shall bow the knee. 
 
 I love Thee : — next to heaven above, 
 Land of my fathers ! Thee I love; 
 And, rail thy slanderers as they will, - 
 « With all thy faults I love Thee" still : 
 For faults Thou hast, of heinous size ; 
 Repent, renounce them, ere they rise 
 In judgement; — lest thine ocean-wall 
 With boundless ruin round Thee fall. 
 And that, which was thy mightiest stay. 
 
 Sweep all thy rocks Hke sand away. 
 
 Yes, Thou hast faults of heinous size, 4 
 
 From which I turn with weeping eyes ; 
 
 On these let them that hate Thee dwell : 
 
 Yet one I spare not, — one I tell. 
 
 Tell with a whisper in thine ear ; 
 
 Oh ! might it wring thine heart with fear ! 
 
 Oh ! that my weakest word might roll, 
 
 Like heaven's own thunder, through thy soul !
 
 TO BRITAIN. 249 
 
 There is a Lie in thy right-hand ; 
 A Bribe, corrupting all the land ; 
 There is within thy gates a pest, 
 — Gold and a Babylonish vest', 
 Not hid in shame-concealing shade, 
 But broad against the sun display'd. 
 These, — ttell it not, — it must be told : 
 These from thy Lottery- Wheels are sold ; 
 Sold, — and thy children, train'd to sin, 
 Hazard both worlds these plagues to win ; 
 Nay thy deluded statesmen stake 
 Thyself, — and lose Thee for their sake ! 
 Lose Thee? — They shall not; — He^ whose will 
 Is Nature's law, preserves Thee still ; 
 And while the' uplifted bolt impends, 
 One warning more his mercy sends. 
 
 O Britain ! O my country ! bring 
 Forth from thy camp the' accursed thing ; 
 Consign it to remorseless fire. 
 Watch till the latest spark expire*
 
 250 TO BRITAIN. 
 
 Then cast the ashes on the wind, 
 Nor leave one atom-wreck behind. 
 
 So may thy wealth and power increase , 
 So may thy people dwell in peace ; 
 On Thee the' Almighty's glory rest, 
 And all the world in Thee be blest. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
 5 ^^ 
 
 1 
 
 iStrahan and Spottiswoode, Printers-Street, London.
 
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