The Poetical Works of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart. M.P Part 66

BOOK IX.

ARGUMENT.

Invocation to the North--Winter, Labour, and Necessity, as agents of Civilization--The Polar Seas described--The lonely Ship; its Leader and Crew--Honour due from Song to the Discoverer!--The battle with the Walruses--The crash of the floating Icebergs--The ship ice-locked-- Arthur's address to the Norwegian Crew--They abandon the vessel and reach land--The Dove finds the healing herb--Returns to the Ship, which is broken up for log-huts--The winter deepens--The sufferings and torpor of the crew--The effect of Will upon life--Will preserves us from ills our own, not from sympathy with the ills of others--Man in his higher development has a two-fold nature--in his imagination and his feelings--Imagination is lonely, Feeling social--The strange affection between the King and the Dove--The King sets forth to explore the desert; his joy at recognizing the print of human feet--The attack of the Esquimaux--The meeting between Arthur and his friend--The crew are removed to the ice-huts of the Esquimaux--The adventures of Sir Gawaine continued--His imposture in pa.s.sing himself off as a priest of Freya--He exorcises the winds which the Norwegian hags had tied up in bags--And accompanies the Whalers to the North Seas--The storm--How Gawaine and his hound are saved--He delivers the Pigmies from the Bears, and finally establishes himself in the Settlement of the Esquimaux--Philosophical controversy between Arthur and Gawaine, relative to the Raven--Arthur briefly explains how he came into the Polar Seas in search of the Shield of Thor--Lancelot and Genevra having sailed for Carduel--Gawaine informs Arthur that the Esquimaux have a legend of a Shield guarded by a Dwarf--The first appearance of the Polar Sun above the horizon.

Throned on the dazzling and untrodden height, 1 Form'd of the frost-gems ages[1] labour forth From the blanch'd air,--crown'd with the pomp of light I' the midst of dark,--stern Father of the North, Thee I invoke, as, awed, my steps profane The dumb gates opening on thy death-like reign!

Here did the venturous Ithacan[2] explore, 2 Amidst the dusky, wan, Cimmerian waste, By Ocean's farthest bounds--the spectre sh.o.r.e Trod by the Dead, and vainly here embraced The Phantom Mother. Pause, look round, survey The ghastly realm beyond the shafts of Day.

Magnificent Horror!--How like royal Death 3 Broods thy great hush above the seeds of Life!

Under the snow-ma.s.s cleaves thine icy breath, And, with the birth of fairy forests rife, Blushes the world of white;[3]--the green that glads The wave, is but the march of myriads;

There, immense, moves uncouth leviathan; 4 There, from the hollows of phantasmal isles, The morse[4] emerging rears the face of man, There, the huge bear scents, miles on desolate miles, The basking seal;--and ocean shallower grows, Where, through its world, a world, the kraken goes.

Father of races, marching at the van 5 Of the great league and armament of Thought;-- When Eastern stars grew dim to drooping man, And waned the antique light Prometheus brought, The North beheld the new Alcides rise, Unbind the t.i.tan and relight the skies.

Imperial WINTER, hail!--All hail with thee 6 Labour, the stern Perfecter of Mankind, Shaping the ends of human destiny Out of the iron of the human mind: For in our toils our fates we may survey!

And where rests Labour there begins decay.

Winter, and Labour, and Necessity, 7 Behold the Three that make us what we are!

Forced to invent--aspirers to the High, Nerved to endure--the conquerors of the Far-- So the crude nebula in movement hurl'd, Takes form in moving, and becomes a world.

Dumb Universe of Winter--there it lies 8 Dim through the mist, a spectral skeleton!

Far in the wan verge of the solid skies Hangs day and night the phantom of a moon; And slowly moving on the horizon's brink Floats the vast ice-field with its gla.s.sy blink.[5]

But huge adown the liquid Infinite 9 Drift the sea Andes--by the patient wrath Of the strong waves uprooted from their site In bays forlorn--and on their winter path (Themselves a winter) glide, or heavily, where They freeze the wind, halt in the inert air.

Nor bird nor beast lessens with visible 10 Life, the large awe of s.p.a.ce without a sun; Though in each atom life unseen doth dwell And glad with gladness G.o.d the Living One.

HE breathes--but breathless hang the airs that freeze!

HE speaks--but noiseless list the silences!

A lonely ship--lone in the measureless sea, 11 Lone in the channel through the frozen steeps, Like some bold thought launch'd on infinity By early sage--comes glimmering up the deeps!

The dull wave, dirge-like, moans beneath the oar; The dull air heaves with wings that glide before.

From earth's warm precincts, through the sunless gate 12 That guards the central vapour-home of Dark, Into the heart of the vast Desolate, Lone flies the Dove before the lonely bark.

While the crown'd seeker of the glory-spell Looks to the angel and disdains the h.e.l.l.

Huddled on deck, one-half that hardy crew 13 Lie shrunk and wither'd in the biting sky, With filmy stare and lips of livid hue, And sapless limbs that stiffen as they lie: While the dire pest-scourge of the frozen zone[6]

Rots through the vein, and gnaws the knotted bone.

Yet still the hero-remnant, sires perchance 14 Of Rollo's Norman knighthood, dauntless steer Along the deepening horror and advance Upon the invisible foe, loud chanting clear Some l.u.s.ty song of Thor, the Hammer-G.o.d, When o'er those iron seas the Thunderer trod,

And pierced the halls of Lok! Still while they sung, 15 The sick men lifted dim their languid eyes, And palely smiled, and with convulsive tongue Chimed to the choral chant, in hollow sighs; Living or dying, those proud hearts the same Swell to the danger, and foretaste the fame.

On, ever on, labours the lonely bark, 16 Time in that world seems dead. Nor jocund sun Nor rosy Hesperus dawns; but visible Dark Stands round the ghastly moon. For ever on Labours the lonely bark, through lock'd defiles That crisping coil around the drifting isles.

Honour, thrice honour unto ye, O Brave! 17 And ye, our England's sons, in the later day, Whose valour to the sh.o.r.es of Hela gave Names,--as the guides where suns deny the ray!

And, borne by hope and vivid strength of soul, Made Man's last landmark Nature's farthest goal!

Whom, nor the unmoulded chaos, with its birth 18 Of uncouth monsters, nor the fierce disease, Nor horrible famine, nor the Stygian dearth Of Orcus dead'ning adamantine seas, Scared from the Spirit's grand desire,--TO KNOW!

The Galileos of new worlds below!

Man the Discoverer--whosoe'er thou art, 19 Honour to thee from all the lyres of song!

Honour to him who leads to Nature's heart One footstep nearer! To the Muse belong All who enact what in the song we read; Man's n.o.blest poem is Man's bravest deed.

On, ever on,--when veering to the West 20 Into a broader desert leads the Dove; A larger ripple stirs the ocean's breast, A hazier vapour undulates above; Along the ice-fields move the things that live, Large in the life the misty glamours give.

In flocks the lazy walrus lay around 21 Gazing and stolid; while the dismal crane Stalk'd curious near;--and on the hinder ground Paused indistinct the Fenris of the main, The insatiate bear,--to sniff the stranger blood,-- For Man till then had vanish'd since the flood,

And all of Man were fearless!--On the sea 22 The vast leviathans came up to breathe, With their young giants leaping forth in glee, Or leaving whirlpools where they sank beneath.

And round and round the bark the narwal[7] sweeps, With white horn glistening through the sluggish deeps.

Uprose a bold Norwegian, hunger-stung, 23 As near the icy marge a walrus lay, Hurl'd his strong spear, and smote the beast, and sprung Upon the frost-field on the wounded prey;-- Sprung and recoil'd--as writhing with the pangs, The bulk crawl'd towards him with its flashing fangs.

Roused to fell life--around their comrade throng, 24 Snorting wild wrath, the shapeless, grisly swarms-- Like moving mounts slow ma.s.ses trail along; Aghast the man beholds the larva-forms-- Flies--climbs the bark--the deck is scaled--is won; And all the monstrous march heaves lengthening on.

"Quick to your spears!" the kingly leader cries. 25 Spears flash on flashing tusks; groan the strong planks With the a.s.sault: front after front they rise With their bright[8] stare; steel thins in vain their ranks, And dyes with blood their birth-place and their grave; Ma.s.s rolls on ma.s.s, as rolls on wave a wave.

These strike and rend the reeling sides below; 26 Those grappling clamber up and load the decks, With looks of wrath so human on the foe, They seem to horror like the mangled wrecks Of what were men in worlds before the Ark!

Thus raged the immane and monster war--when, hark,

Crash'd through the dreary air a thunder peal! 27 In their slow courses meet two ice-rock isles Clanging; the wide seas far-resounding reel; The toppling ruin rolls in the defiles; The pent tides quicken with the headlong shock: Broad-billowing heave the long waves from the rock;

Far down the booming vales precipitous 28 Plunges the stricken galley,--as a steed Smit by the shaft runs reinless,--o'er the prows Howl the lash'd surges; Man and monster freed By power more awful from the savage fray, Here roaring sink--there dumbly whirl away.

The water runs in maelstroms;--as a reed 29 Spins in an eddy and then skirs along,-- Dragg'd round and round, emerged and vanished The mighty ship amidst the mightier throng Of the revolving h.e.l.l. With abrupt spring Bounding at last--on it shot maddening.

Behind it, thunderous swept the glacier ma.s.ses, 30 Shivering and splintering, hurtling each on each: Narrower and narrower press the frowning pa.s.ses:-- Jamm'd in the farthest gorge the bark may reach, Where the grim Scylla rocks the direful way, The fierce Charybdis flings her mangled prey.

As if a living thing, in every part 31 The vessel groans--and with a dismal chime Cracks to the cracking ice; asunder start The brazen ribs:--and clogg'd and freezing, climb Through cleft and c.h.i.n.k, as through their native caves, The gelid armies of the hardening waves.

One sigh whose lofty pity did embrace 32 The vanish'd many, the surviving few, The Cymrian gave--then with a cheering face He spoke, and breathed his soul into the crew: "Ye whom the haught desire of Fame, whose air Is storm, and tales of what your fathers were,

"What time their valour wrought such deeds below 33 As made the valiant lift them to the G.o.ds, Impell'd with me to spare all meaner foe, And vanquish'd Nature in the fiend's abodes;-- Droop not nor faint!--Reserved, perchance, to give Themes to such song as bids your Odin live:--

"A voice from those now gone in darkness down, 34 Bids us endure!--Of all they ask'd in life Our death would rob their lofty shades--RENOWN!

The wave hath pluck'd us from the monster strife, Lo where the icebay frees us from the wave, And yields a port in what we deem'd a grave!

"Up and at work all hands to lash the bark 35 With grappling-hook, and cord, and iron band To yon firm peak, the Ararat of our ark, Then with good heart pierce to the vapour-land; For the crane's scream, and the bear's welcome roar Tell where the wave joins solid to the sh.o.r.e."

Swift as he spoke, the gallant Northmen sprang 36 On the sharp ice,--drew from the frozen blocks The mangled wreck;--with many a barbed fang And twisted cable to the horrent rocks Moor'd: and then, shouting up the solitude Their guiding star, the Dove's pale wing, pursued.

Round the dim bases of the glacier peaks, 37 They see the silvery Arctic fox at play, Sure sign of land,--aloft with ghastly shrieks, Wheel the wan sea-gulls, luring to his prey The ravening glaucus[9] sudden shooting o'er The din of wings from the gray gleaming sh.o.r.e.

At length they reach the land,--if land that be 38 Which seems so like the frost-piles of the deep, That where commenced the soil and ceased the sea Shows dim, as is the bound between the sleep And waking of some wretch whose palsied brain Dulls him to ev'n the slow return of pain.