On and on we sailed through the waters dark,
Where the damp fog clung like a witch's veil,
And hid from the faces of watchers pale,
The dangers that crowded around our bark,
In this, the birth-place of the snow and mist.
Icebergs by the low clouds covered and kissed,
Clustered round us like ghosts to bar our way;
While the sharp sleet drove on the icy blast,
Cutting through the foam of the seething spray,
Sheathing in ice both sail and mast,
Northward still northward we sailed away.
The wild air was thick with flurrying snow;
The winds broken loose, raging, swept and swirled,
Heaping mountain drifts on hummock and floe,
Deadly that wind as the cannon's breath,
To crush out life with the blast of death.
Wreathing winding sheets round an Arctic world.
Upon that wild day, on that dreadful day!
Amid grinding noises of crash and jar,
With the winds and snow, waves and ice at war,
In their wildest fury and greatest might,
We drove with the storm into that wide bay,
That forever will keep our captain's name,
And embalm in horror his death and fame,
And around us closed in the Arctic night.
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