Is many a fathom to the bottom chain'd,
And bid to roar no more: a bleak expanse,
Shagg'd o'er with wavy rocks, cheerless, and void
Of every life, that from the dreary months 920
Flies conscious southward. Miserable they!
Who, here entangled in the gathering ice,
Take their last look of the descending sun;
While, full of death, and fierce with tenfold frost,
The long long night, incumbent o'er their head, 925
Falls horrible. Such was the [1]Briton's Fate,
As with first prow, (what have not Britons dar'd!)
He for the passage fought, attempted since
So much in vain, and seeming to be shut
By jealous Nature with eternal bars. 930
In these fell regions, in Arxina caught,
And to the stony deep his idle ship
Immediate seal'd, he with his hapless crew,
Each full exerted at his several task,
Froze into statues; to the cordage glued 935
The sailor, and the pilot to the helm.
Hard by these shores, where scarce his freezing stream
Rolls the wild Oby, live the last of Men;
And, half-enliven'd by the distant sun,
That rears and ripens Man, as well as plants, 940
Here human Nature wears its rudest form.
Deep from the piercing season sunk in caves,
Here by dull fires, and with unjoyous cheer,
They waste the tedious gloom. Immers'd in furs,
Doze the gross race. Nor sprightly jest, nor song, 945
Nor tenderness they know; nor aught of life,
Beyond the kindred bears that stalk without.
- ↑ Sir Hugh Willoughby, sent by Queen Elizabeth to discover the north-east passage.
