LIFE OF JAMES DWIGHT DANA 



While, from the vortex in her wake, 



High spouts the whale his flood of spray, 



Lashing the waters till they quake 

 Beneath his flooks' tremendous play. 



Serenely sweeps that stately bird 



Whose wing, more fair than polar snows, 



In all his flight is never stirred 

 Out of its tranquil, proud repose. 



And with the roving albatross, 



The sheath-bill flickers round and round ; 

 And petrels hop the foam across 



Where lightest janthine might be drowned. 



With oval disk and feeble blaze, 

 Now shrinks away the pallid sun ; 



And Night comes groping through the haze, 

 Like guilty ghost in cerements dun. 



The dank, cold fog, slow-settling down, 

 Hangs o'er the waste a murky pall ; 



And round the narrow, misty zone 

 The seas heave up a wavy wall. 



The storm outspent has ceased to howl ; 



The winds have moaned themselves to sleep ; 

 And Darkness broods with sullen scowl 



Over the stranger and the deep. 



IV 



No sparrow greets the clear cold morn 

 No swain comes forth with carol gay ; 



But wild the sea-bird's scream is borne, 

 And thus the sailor chants his lay : 



ANTARCTIC MARINER'S SONG 

 i 



" Sweetly, from the land of roses, 



Sighing comes the northern breeze ; 

 And the smile of dawn reposes, 

 All in blushes, on the seas. 



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