LIEUTENANT DE LONG'S DIARY. 393 



The fire in front, Death at our backs, we calmly waited there, 

 To know the worst, and trust in God, who always answers prayer. 

 Our chief's numb fingers slowly moved across the log-book leaf, 

 While Erickson lay dying, and we crouched dumb with grief. 



No word from Kumak Surka came, where Nindermann had gone, 

 His footprints mocked us in the snow on that October morn, 

 That Sabbath still and sileut, as we shrunk with bated breath, 

 Each sheeted in an icy shroud all holding tryst with Death. 



Then Erickson, brave Erickson, at last gave up the fight; 

 He was buried in the river in the fierce Siberian night, 

 The Arctic wind his requiem, the Arctic wave his pall, 

 Then to our meager fire we crept, where gloom fell o'er us all. 



Oh, God! those days that followed! What half-way hopes and fears! 

 What earnest prayers and unheard groans, and melting hearts and tears! 

 What hunger keen, and faces blanched! \\hat howling Polar wind, 

 That pierced the marrow, mocked at fire, and almost made us blind. 



Alexai, our stout hunter, who had breasted many a storm, 

 To give his messmates food and fire, their freezing limbs to warm 

 The sturdy oak lay felled at last before the scythe-like frost; 

 lie, too, within the Lena lies, by its strong current tost. 



Then others, tired of battling cold and hunger, drooped and died, 

 Nor strength had we to bury them they lay there by our side; 

 But surely Christ the Saviour who within a manger lay, 

 Took pity on us, desolate, that bleak October day. 



For on us dawned a quietude, a holy soothing calm, 

 And keen and cutting Arctic winds breathed voices like a psalm; 

 The sounding of the river running north beneath the ice, 

 Seemed whisperings of angels on the shores of Paradise. 



Then pain and hunger left us left us all our weary aches, 

 And our forebodings sad of home for wife and children's sakes. 

 Iversen and Dressier silent! Boyd and Gortz, too, speak my friend, 

 'Tis the Sabbath Collins dying * * * * and the log was at an end. 



New York Star. 



