 | Song and Story |  |
178
THE SPHINX OF ICE.
With dark, with frost, with silence for her shrine,
Girt by her ghastly realms of dearth, despair,
She reigns in solitude, contented there,
A goddess beautiful and saturnine.
Round her vast huddling bergs of frozen brine
Jut spectral from the bitter North's gray air;
Above her, weird auroras leap and flare,
And like swords' points the acute stars ever shine.
Girt by her ghastly realms of dearth, despair,
She reigns in solitude, contented there,
A goddess beautiful and saturnine.
Round her vast huddling bergs of frozen brine
Jut spectral from the bitter North's gray air;
Above her, weird auroras leap and flare,
And like swords' points the acute stars ever shine.
And venturous mariners, through weary years,
Push up their bold barks, eager to discern
Her great pale shape, her secret to entice,
Till wrecked, numb, doomed, with half insensate ears
They hear long terrible laughter pealing stern
In arctic mockery from the Sphinx of Ice!
Push up their bold barks, eager to discern
Her great pale shape, her secret to entice,
Till wrecked, numb, doomed, with half insensate ears
They hear long terrible laughter pealing stern
In arctic mockery from the Sphinx of Ice!
| Song and Story | |