The Poetical Works of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart. M.P Part 69

The gentle King well versed in woman's heart, 116 And all the vestal thoughts that tend its shrine, On Lancelot smiled--and answer'd, "Maid, depart; Though o'er our roofs the thunder clouds combine, Yet love shall guard, whatever war betide, The Saxon's daughter--or the Cymrian's bride."

A stately ship from glittering Spezia bore 117 To Cymrian ports the lovers from the King; Then on, the Seeker of the Shield, once more, With patient soul pursued the heavenly wing.

Wild though that crew, his heart enthralls their own;-- The great are kings wherever they are thrown.

Nought of that mystery which the Spirit's priest, 118 True Love, draws round the aisles behind the veil, Could Arthur bare to that light joyous breast,-- Life hath its inward as its outward tale, Our lips reveal our deeds,--our sufferings shun; What we have felt, how few can tell to one!

The triple task--the sword not sought in vain, 119 The shield yet hidden in the caves of Lok, Of these spoke Arthur,--"Certes," quoth Gawaine, When the King ceased--"strange legends of a rock Where a fierce Dwarf doth guard a shield of light, Oft have I heard my pigmy friends recite;

"Permit me now your royal limbs to wrap 120 In these warm relics of departed bears; And while from Morpheus you decoy a nap, My skill the grain shall gather from the tares.

The Pigmy tongue my erudite pursuits Have traced _ad unguem_--to the nasal roots!"

Slumbers the King--slumber his ghastly crew: 121 How long they know not, guess not--night and dawn Long since commingled in one livid hue: Like that long twilight o'er the portals drawn, Behind whose threshold spreads eternity!

When the sleep burst, and sudden in the sky

Stands the great Sun!--Like the first glorious breath 122 Of Freedom to the slave, like Hope upon The hush of woe, or through the mists of death A cheerful Angel--comes to earth the Sun!

Ice still on land--still vapour in the air, But light--the victor Lord--but Light is there!

On siege-worn cities, when their war is spent, 123 From the far hill as, gleam on gleam, arise The spears of some great aiding armament-- Grow the dim splendours, broadening up the skies, Till bright and brighter, the sublime array Flings o'er the world the banners of the Day!

Behold them where they kneel! the starry King, 124 The dwarfs of night, the giants of the sea!

Each with the other linked in solemn ring, Too blest for words!--Man's sever'd Family, All made akin once more beneath those eyes Which on their Father smiled in Paradise!

NOTES TO BOOK IX.

1.--Page 346, stanza i.

_Form'd of the frost-gems ages labour forth_

The mountains of hard and perfect ice are the gradual production, perhaps, of many centuries.--_LESLIE'S Polar Seas and Regions._

2.--Page 346, stanza ii.

_Here did the venturous Ithacan explore._

Ulysses. _Odys._, lib. xi.

3.--Page 347, stanza iii.

_And, with the birth of fairy forests rife, Blushes the world of white._

The phenomenon of the red snow on the Arctic mountains is formed by innumerable vegetable bodies; and the olive green of the Greenland Sea by Medusan animalcules, the number of which Mr. Scoresby ill.u.s.trates by supposing that 80,000 persons would have been employed since the creation in counting it.--See LESLIE.

4.--Page 347, stanza iv.

_The morse emerging rears the face of man._

The Morse, or Walrus, supposed to be the original of the Merman; from the likeness its face presents at a little distance to that of a human being.

5.--Page 347, stanza viii.

_Floats the vast ice-field with its gla.s.sy blink._

The ice-blink seen on the horizon.

6.--Page 348, stanza xiii.

_While the dire pest-scourge of the frozen zone._

Though the fearful disease known by the name of the scurvy is not peculiar to the northern lat.i.tudes; and Dr. Budd has ably disproved (in the Library of Practical Medicine) the old theory that it originated in cold and moisture; yet the disease was known in the north of Europe from the remotest ages, while no mention is made of its appearance in more genial climates before the year 1260.

7.--Page 349, stanza xxii.

_And round and round the bark the narwal sweeps._

The Sea Unicorn.

8.--Page 350, stanza xxv.

_front after front they rise With their bright stare._

The eye of the Walrus is singularly bright.

9.--Page 351, stanza x.x.xvii.

_The ravening glaucus sudden shooting o'er._

The Larus Glaucus, the great bird of prey in the Polar regions.

10.--Page 352, stanza xl.

_Blithe from the turf the Dove the blessed leaves._

Herbs which act as the antidotes to the scurvy (the cochlearia, &c.) are found under the snows, when all other vegetation seems to cease.

11.--Page 354, stanza liv.

_The earthlier half, its own and Heaven's before._

In allusion to the well-known Platonic fancy, that love is the yearning of the soul for the twin soul with which it was united in a former existence, and which it instinctively recognizes below.

Schiller, in one of his earlier poems, has enlarged on this idea with earnest feeling and vigorous fancy.

12.--Page 357, stanza lxxiii.

_Ice-blocks the walls, and hollow'd ice the roof!_

The houses of the Esquimaux who received Captain Lyon were thus constructed:--the frozen snow being formed into slabs of about two feet long and half a foot thick; the benches were made with snow, strewed with twigs, and covered with skins; and the lamp suspended from the roof, fed with seal or walrus oil, was the sole subst.i.tute for the hearth, and furnished light and fire for cooking.

The Esquimaux were known to the settlers and pirates of Norway by the contemptuous name of dwarfs or pigmies--(_Skroellings_).