The busy hum of Paris was dinning o'er thy head, And the reckless passer hurried by and thought not of the dead,
The pomp and pageantry were past, the burial was o'er, And Napoleon slept as lonely there as on Helena's shore.
LITTLE group of worn-out men,
With weary limbs and shattered forms, Whose stalwart wills and gallant hearts Were strong to face dark danger's storms! And one amidst them, slight of frame, And pale from strife with death and pain, A hero's soul, whose martyr zeal
Bore nobly suffering's cankering chain!
They met within the solemn aisles-
Of ice-built shrine, a temple grand,
Alone upon a frozen sea,
The saving and the rescued band,
Mid crystal columns reared aloft
Against a gray and cloud-draped dome, The only thing—that shadowed sky
In all the waste that looked like home!
They stood with bowed, uncovered heads,
With reverent mien and moistened eyes,
Remembering scenes that long had passed,
Recalling love's most tender ties,
As softly on the keen, cold air
Their leader's voice rose calm and clear,
And raised, like prophet's tone, the hope
That in each heart had found a bier.
Few words of humble, grateful praise,
For guidance, life, and rest, a prayer,
A low "Amen" from quivering lips,
Were all the pomps of service there!
It gave them strength to conquer death;
It made them brave to dare and do;
It kept them faithful to the end,
A band of brothers, tried and true!
Then bless them, souls of Christian men
O'er all the earth who praise and pray;
And bless him most of all, their chief,
Who first in duty led the way,
Who first upon those regions drear
Of frozen, unknown waters spoke
The name of Christ, whose world-blessed sound
The solitude of silence broke!
Those polar mounts of ice may melt
Beneath the Arctic's summer skies;
May speed the nations' hoarded wealth,
And 'neath the tropics ebb and rise;
Yet bear abroad, where'er they flow,
That baptism of the holy Name
They echoed from his voice who died
And left those bergs to spread his fame!
A SCENE IN THE POLAR REGIONS.
AR in the north, behind the Orcades,
The setting sun a twilight glimmer shed;
Eastward afar the coasts of men were seen
Dim, shadowy, and spectral; like a still,
Broad land of spirits lay the vacant sea
Beneath the empty heavens; — here and there
Perchance a vessel skimmed the watery waste,
Like a white-winged sea-bird; but it moved
Too pale and small beneath the veil of space.
Sublime and awful solitude! the heart,
As it broods over thee, beats fast, and feels
Ennobled ! -- Thou, too, goest forth, pale sun;
Like a white angel, goest down to visit
The silent, ice-walled cloister of the pole,
And, drawing after thee thy bridal garment,
That floats in gold upon the weltering wave,
Veilest thyself around! Where art thou now,
Pale one in rosy robes?
Again into a warm and glowing eye
Among the ice-fields? Standing here, I gaze
Down on the dreary winter of the world.
How dumb and endless is it down below!
The almighty, outstretched giant stirs himself
In all his thousand limbs, and wrinkles up,
And nothing remains great before him, save
His Father, the great Heaven! Mighty Son!
Wilt lead me to the Father, when, at last,
I come to thee?
Lo, what a gorgeous spectacle! Aurora
Upon the ruddy evening twilight glows,
With fast increasing light. What can it be
That rends away so suddenly the dark
Shroud of the watery Orcus? How the shores
Of men like golden morning blaze! Oh, art thou
Already come to us again, thou fair,
Majestic Sun, so young and rosy-red?
And wilt thou journey kindly yet once more
A long day's journey o'er the fields of men?
Glow upward, then, immortal one! I stand
Yet cold and pale on my horizon: soon
I must go down to the dark realms of ice.
But shall I, too, like him, O God, arise
More warm and bright again, to journey through
A long, bright day in thy eternity?
Jean Paul Richter. Versified by C. T. Brooks.
HALL I desist, twice baffled? Once by land,
And once by sea, I fought and strove with storms, All shades of danger, tides, and weary calms; Head-currents, cold and famine, savage beasts, And men more savage; all the while my face Looked northward toward the pole; if mortal strength Could have sustained me, I had never turned
|