| |
| WHERE the short-legged Esquimaux | |
| Waddle in the ice and snow, | |
| And the playful polar bear | |
| Nips the hunter unaware; | |
| Where by day they track the ermine, | 5 |
| And by night another vermin,— | |
| Segment of the frigid zone, | |
| Where the temperature alone | |
| Warms on St. Elias’ cone; | |
| Polar dock, where Nature slips | 10 |
| From the ways her icy ships; | |
| Land of fox and deer and sable, | |
| Shore end of our western cable,— | |
| Let the news that flying goes | |
| Thrill through all your Arctic floes, | 15 |
| And reverberate the boast | |
| From the cliffs of Beechey’s coast, | |
| Till the tidings, circling round | |
| Every bay of Norton Sound, | |
| Throw the vocal tide-wave back | 20 |
| To the isles of Kodiac. | |
| Let the stately polar bears | |
| Waltz around the pole in pairs, | |
| And the walrus, in his glee, | |
| Bare his tusk of ivory; | 25 |
| While the bold sea unicorn | |
| Calmly takes an extra horn; | |
| All ye polar skies, reveal your | |
| Very rarest of parhelia; | |
| Trip it, all ye merry dancers, | 30 |
| In the airiest of lancers; | |
| Slide, ye solemn glaciers, slide, | |
| One inch farther to the tide, | |
| Nor in rash precipitation | |
| Upset Tyndall’s calculation. | 35 |
| Know you not what fate awaits you, | |
| Or to whom the future mates you? | |
| All ye icebergs make salaam,— | |
| You belong to Uncle Sam! | |
| |
| On the spot where Eugene Sue | 40 |
| Led his wretched Wandering Jew, | |
| Stands a form whose features strike | |
| Russ and Esquimaux alike. | |
| He it is whom Skalds of old | |
| In their Runic rhymes foretold; | 45 |
| Lean of flank and lank of jaw, | |
| See the real Northern Thor! | |
| See the awful Yankee leering | |
| Just across the Straits of Behring; | |
| On the drifted snow, too plain, | 50 |
| Sinks his fresh tobacco stain | |
| Just beside the deep inden- | |
| Tation of his Number Ten. | |
| |
| Leaning on his icy hammer | |
| Stands the hero of this drama, | 55 |
| And above the wild-duck’s clamor, | |
| In his own peculiar grammar, | |
| With its linguistic disguises, | |
| Lo, the Arctic prologue rises: | |
| “Wall, I reckon ’t ain’t so bad, | 60 |
| Seein’ ez ’t was all they had; | |
| True, the Springs are rather late | |
| And early Falls predominate; | |
| But the ice crop ’s pretty sure, | |
| And the air is kind o’ pure; | 65 |
| ’T ain’t so very mean a trade, | |
| When the land is all surveyed. | |
| There ’s a right smart chance for fur-chase | |
| All along this recent purchase, | |
| And, unless the stories fail, | 70 |
| Every fish from cod to whale; | |
| Rocks, too; mebbe quartz; let ’s see,— | |
| ’T would be strange if there should be,— | |
| Seems I ’ve heerd such stories told; | |
| Eh!—why, bless us;—yes, it ’s gold!” | 75 |
| |
| While the blows are falling thick | |
| From his California pick, | |
| You may recognize the Thor | |
| Of the vision that I saw,— | |
| Freed from legendary glamour, | 80 |
| See the real magician’s hammer. | |
| |
