Barb'd with the fleeted fnow, the driving hail, And thro' the dim, unvaried, ling'ring hours, From the rude fummit of yon frozen fteep, Contrafting Glory gilds the dreary deep! Lo!-deck'd with vermeil youth and beamy grace, Hope in her ftep, and gladness in her face, Light on the icy rock, with outftretch'd hands, The Goddefs of the new Columbus ftands. Round her bright head the plumy * Peterels foar, Blue as her robe, that sweeps the frozen fhore; Glows her foft cheek, as vernal mornings fair, And warm as fummer-funs her golden hair; O'er the hoar wafte her radiant glances ftream, And courage kindles in the magic beam. She points the fhip its mazy path, to thread The floating fragments of the frozen bed. While o'er the deep in many a dreadful form, The giant Danger howls along the ftorm, Furling the iron fails with numbed hands, Firm on the deck the great Adventurer stands; * Peterels foar. The peterel is a bird found in the frozen feas; its neck and tail are white, and its wings of a bright blue. + The floating fragments." In the courfe of the laft twenty-four hours, we paffed through feveral fields of broken ice; they were in general narrow, but of confiderable extent. In one part the pieces of ice were fo clofe, that the fhip had much difficulty to thread them." Furling the iron fails. Our fails and rigging were fo frozen, that they feemed plates of iron." Round glitt'ring mountains hears the billows rave, Appall'd he hears !-but checks the rifing figh, Not for himself ftarts the impaffion'd tear, And now antarctic Zealand's drear domain And the vaft ruin.--The breaking of one of thefe immenfe mountains of ice, and the prodigious noife it made, is particularly described in Cook's fecond voyage to the fouth Pole. Till Nature, &c.-" After running four leagues this courfe, with the ice on our Rarboard fide, we found ourfelves quite embay'd, the ice extending from northnorth-east, round by the weft and fouth, to eat, in one compact body; the weather was tolerably clear, yet we could fee no end to it." The olive-branch.-" To carry a green branch in the hand on landing, is a pacific figual, univerfally understood by all the islanders in the South Seas." With jealous low'r the frowning natives view And yet there were, who in this iron clime Soar'd o'er the herd on Virtue's wing fublime; Rever'd the ftranger-gueft, and smiling ftrove To foothe his ftay with hofpitable love! Fann'd in full confidence the tender flame, * Join'd plighted hands, and name exchang'd for name. And pours new wonders on th' uncultur'd fhore; So when the Daughter of eternal Jove, * And name exchang'd.-The exchange of names is a pledge of amity among these iflanders, and was frequently propofed by them to Captain Cook and his people; fo alfo is the joining nofes. His living ftore.-Captain Cook left various kinds of animals upon this coaft, together with garden-feeds, &c. The Zealandets had hitherto fubfifted upon fish, and fuch coarfe vegetables as their climate produced; and this want of better provifion, it is fuppofed, induced them to the horrid practice of eating human flesh. The maffy trident with gigantic force Cleaves the firm earth-and gives the ftately Horfe; Shakes his high front and thunders o'er the plain. Now the warm folftice o'er the fhining bay, Darts from the north its mild meridian ray; Again the Chief invokes the rifing gale, And spreads again in defart feas the fail; O'er dangerous fhoals his steady steerage keeps, O'er walls of coral ambush'd in the deeps; Strong Labour's hands the crackling cordage twine, And sleepless Patience heaves the founding-line. On a lone beach a rock-built temple ftands, Walls of coral. The coral rocks are described as rifing perpendicularly from the greatest depths of the ocean, infomuch that the founding-line could not reach their bottom; and yet they were but just covered with water. Thefe rocks are now found to be fabricated by fea-infects. And fleepless Patience." We had now paffed feveral months with a man conftantly in the chains heaving the lead." A rock-built temple. -"On one part of this isle there was a folitary rock, rifing on the coaft with arched cavities, like a majestic temple." |