The Lost Expedition.
Lift—lift, ye mists, from off the silent coast,1
Folded in endless winter’s chill embraces ;2
Unshroud for us awhile our brave ones lost !3
Let us behold their faces !4
In vain—the North has hid them from our sight ;5
The snow their winding sheet,—their only dirges6
The groan of ice-bergs in the polar night7
Racked by the savage surges.8
No Funeral Torches with a smoky glare9
Shone a farewell upon their shrouded faces ;—10
No monumental pillar tall and fair11
Towers o’er their resting-places.12
But Northern Streamers flare the long night through13
Over the cliffs stupendous, fraught with peril,14
Of ice-bergs, tinted with a ghostly hue15
Of amethyst and beryl.16
No human tears upon their graves are shed—17
Tears of Domestic Love, or Pity Holy ;18
But snow-flakes from the gloomy sky o’erhead,19
Down-shuddering, settle slowly.20
Yet History shrines them with her mighty dead,21
The hero-seamen of this isle of Britain,22
And, when the brighter scroll of Heaven is read,23
There will their names be written !24