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| IN summer, eighteen fifty-eight, | |
| A ship sailed out from Aberdeen; | |
| A gilded pet for summer state | |
| The little Fox had been. | |
| |
| But ringing hammers night and day | 5 |
| Her coat of iron mail did fix, | |
| Before they sent the Fox away | |
| With sailors twenty-six. | |
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| I call them sailors every one, | |
| Since all were true in time of need; | 10 |
| A very little band to run | |
| Great risk for doubtful meed. | |
| |
| True English hearts sent food and drink, | |
| And everything the crew could store, | |
| And every blessing heart could think | 15 |
| Pursued them from the shore. | |
| |
| And so, across the great salt deep, | |
| From Aberdeen they steamed away; | |
| And, doubling Greenland’s ice-clogged steep, | |
| Pushed up to Baffin’s Bay. | 20 |
| |
| But there the cruel ice grew thick, | |
| And hemmed them in, and hemmed them round; | |
| The little Fox she could not pick | |
| Her way into the Sound, | |
| |
| Which opens westwards towards the Bay, | 25 |
| And leads to endless mysteries, | |
| And kept for many a weary day | |
| The secret of the seas. | |
| |
| So, being finally beset, | |
| Her prow was wedged as in a vice; | 30 |
| And month by month was never wet | |
| Amidst those leagues of ice. | |
| |
| For eight long months seemed motionless, | |
| While game and tale the gloom beguiles; | |
| Yet she, in darkness and distress, | 35 |
| Drifted a thousand miles! | |
| |
| All down the length of Baffin’s Bay, | |
| A southern drift the Fox did keep, | |
| Till darkness melted quite away, | |
| And she into the deep. | 40 |
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| A solemn and an awful track | |
| That silent passage seems to me, | |
| From midnight and the Frozen Pack, | |
| To sunshine and the sea! | |
| |
| And then the gallant little ship | 45 |
| Put joyfully into the shore, | |
| And soon her slender paddles dip | |
| In Northern seas once more. | |
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| This time the summer days were long, | |
| The little Fox is very wise, | 50 |
| And soon she paddles, safe and strong, | |
| Beneath the western skies. | |
| |
| Now Heaven direct her in her track, | |
| And send some sure and guiding breeze, | |
| Or she will never bring us back | 55 |
| The secret of the seas. | |
| |
| She struggles up the Northern route, | |
| The Northern ice is hard and broad; | |
| The little Fox must put about | |
| And seek some other road. | 60 |
| |
| But, though she struggles day and night, | |
| She cannot reach the wished-for land; | |
| The captain and his men alight | |
| Upon a frozen strand. | |
| |
| An awful thing it was to be | 65 |
| Alone upon the icy plain, | |
| Which broadens imperceptibly | |
| Into an icy main! | |
| |
| And then they sledged both east and north, | |
| And then they sledged both south and west, | 70 |
| Till the dread doubt which drove them forth | |
| At last was set at rest. | |
| |
| What did they find? A paper, scored | |
| With English writing, English names, | |
| (How long by English hearts deplored!) | 75 |
| Signed Crosier and Fitzjames! | |
| |
| Scant record of their hungry grief | |
| That blotted page supplied; | |
| But one faint gleam of sad relief— | |
| The day when Franklin died. | 80 |
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| At least he died within his cot, | |
| While kindly eyes were watching there; | |
| We know no tribute was forgot, | |
| They buried him with prayer. | |
| |
| And thus the secret of the seas | 85 |
| Was yielded to their quest, | |
| The mystery of mysteries | |
| Was solved and set at rest. | |
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