Poems (1898)/Nansen
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For other versions of this work, see Nansen.
NANSEN
To drift with thee, not strive against thy tide,
All-powerful Nature! to pursue thy law,
Attentive—with devout and childlike awe
Heark'ning unto thy voice, and none beside:
To drift with thee! With thee for friend and guide
In fragile bark, careless of cold or thaw,
To brave the ice-pack and the dread sea-maw!—
So are man's conquests won, so glorified.
The truest compass is the seeing soul.
Oh, wond'ring earth! did not thy spirit glow,
Calling to mind the deathless Genoese,
As Nansen, pilot of the frozen Pole,
Like a young Viking rode the icy floe,
Wresting their secret from the Arctic Seas?