THE NORTHMEN’ S SONG OF THE POLE

The roar of the seas where the freezing clouds lower,

The shriek of the storm-wind, the turbulent tide,

The conquering currents, all vaunt of their power,

And taunt with the centuries’ secret they hide.

Of towering icebergs and glittering floes,

The sun of the midnight in luminous rings,

Of hopes held at bay by beleaguering snows,

Of man in his weakness the fierce ocean sings.

Bright over the sky the aurora is red,

And crimson as life-blood the snowflakes below;

Swift updarting streamers of fire overspread

All heaven and earth with a roseate glow.

Hark! Hark! to the rumble, the thunderous roar

Of the ancient ice-mountains that shatter and rend

And crash with the tide dashing up on the shore,

In turmoil titanic and toil without end.

O, woe to the ship that the pitiless clutch

Of those crushing ice-demons drags down to her doom!

The path to the pole is o’ er-scattered with such,

And deep sleep the heroes the tempests entomb.

Beneath the wan moon of the long arctic night

The frost-smitten sea stretches boundless and lone;

The Shores of the Dead Men loom spectral and white,

In Helheim, the death-goddess waits for her own.

But ho, to her hatred! the soul of the brave

He bears not who dares not her fury defy!

And ho, to her giants of wind and of wave!

We crave but to meet and defeat them, or die!

Farewell, and farewell!— the anchor rope strains,

Loose cable and canvas, and hasten we forth!

The fire of desire quivers hot in our veins,

We must sail with the gale, to the north! to the north!

Must speed with the blast to its ultimate goal,

The path of its pinions must follow and find

The lure of the ages, the boreal pole,

And the measureless halls of the house of the wind!