COME blest Urania! thou alone canst soar
With dauntless wing through regions unexplor’d
By mortal eye, and thou alone canst paint
The wonders of the northern hemisphere.
Beyond Spitzbergen’s groupe of island rocks,
Which rise like rugged turrets from the deep,-
On whose cold waves huge ice-built mountains float,
And when compell’d to meet the dreadful shock,
At distance heard, stun the astonish’d ear.
In climates more remote and keener still,
Advancing to the pole, where never yet
Th’ advent’rous foot of man essay’d to tread;
Nor ship with daring keel has plough’d the wave;
Whose cliffs ne’er heard the hungry bear complain,
Nor answer’d to the Arctic fox’s cry-
There on a mountain pile of naked rocks,
Whose rugged base the frozen main enfolds,
Whose snow-clad summit mixes with the clouds,
Stands Winter’s massy throne of chrystal ice,
That emulates the em’ralds vivid green.
There, wrapt in mist, a stern gigantic form,
Sits the dread king in sullen majesty.
His canopy of state, dark hanging clouds,
His crown, the dancing Borealis’ rays:
Beneath him stretch’d far as the eye could reach,
A boundless waste of ice the ocean lay;
Beyond the pointed cliffs that girt the coast,
Extending to the dark horizon round,
Were huge dark masses of mis-shapen rocks,
With dreary glens between, rude defiles fill’d
With frozen snow, accumulating still,
And glaciers vast of everlasting ice;
A cheerless solitude, where nought was heard
But the wild uproar of contending winds,
Which howling swept at intervals the waste.
Th’ unrivall’d monarch of this drear domain,
With sullen pride survey’d his stormy realm,
His mighty heart exulting at the view.
” But this alone,” the gloomy tyrant cried,
” This, my sole empire since creation’s birth
” Is not enough for me; lands far remote,
” And yon fair isles beyond the German main,
” Shall feel the terrors of my sway once more.”
He said, and sent his hoary herald first,
Keen penetrating frost, to warn the world
Of his approach-then yok’d the swift-wing’d blasts
To his dark chariot of congealed clouds.
Impetuous, fierce, and strong, and in their course
Resistless, o’er the billowy deep afar,
O’er mountains huge, and tracts of land immense,
Wildly they rush, and as they sweep along,
Scatter sharp hail-showers and broad sheets of snow,
In a new livery clothing half the globe.
(Isabella Lickbarrow)
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Based on Topics: Man Poems, World Poems, Cry Poems, Snow Poems, Dancing Poems, Solitude PoemsBased on Keywords: accumulating, borealis, groupe, emulates, unexplor, swift-wing, ralds, yok, ice-built, mis-shapen, hail-showers