THE ROCK-TOMB OF BRADORE.

A DREAR and desolate shore!

Where no tree unfolds its leaves,

And never the spring wind weaves

Green grass for the hunter's tread;

A land forsaken and dead,

Where the ghostly icebergs go

And come with the ebb and flow

Of the waters of Bradore!

A wanderer, from a land

By summer breezes fanned,

Looked round him, awed, subdued,

By the dreadful solitude,

Hearing alone the cry

Of sea-birds clanging by,

The crash and grind of the floe,

Wail of wind and wash of tide.

“O wretched land!” he cried,

“Land of all lands the worst,

God forsaken and curst!

Thy gates of rock should show

The words the Tuscan seer

Read in the Realm of Woe

Hope entereth not here!”

Lo! at his feet there stood

A block of smooth larch wood,

Waif of some wandering wave,

Beside a rock-closed cave

By Nature fashioned for a grave;

Safe from the ravening bear

And fierce fowl of the air,

Wherein to rest was laid

A twenty summers’ maid,

Whose blood had equal share

Of the lands of vine and snow,

Half French, half Eskimo.

In letters uneffaced,

Upon the block were traced

The grief and hope of man,

And thus the legend ran

“We loved her!

Words cannot tell how well!

We loved her!

God loved her!

And called her home to peace and rest.

We love her.”

The stranger paused and read.

“O winter land!” he said,

“Thy right to be I own;

God leaves thee not alone.

And if thy fierce winds blow

Over drear wastes of rock and snow,

And at thy iron gates

The ghostly iceberg waits,

Thy homes and hearts are dear.

Thy sorrow o'er thy sacred dust

Is sanctified by hope and trust;

God's love and man's are here.

And love where'er it goes

Makes its own atmosphere;

Its flowers of Paradise

Take root in the eternal ice,

And bloom through Polar snows!”