THE BARRIER SILENCE 
The Silence was deep with a breath like sleep 
As our sledge runners slid on the snow. 
But the fate-full fall of our fur-clad feet 
Struck mute like a silent blow 
On a questioning ^ Hush ? ' as the settling crust 
Shrank shivering over the floe. 
And a voice that was thick from a soul that seemed sick 
Came back from the Barrier ; — ' Go ! 
For the secrets hidden are all forbidden 
Till God means man to know.' 
And this was the thought that the silence wrought, 
As it scorched and froze us through, 
That we were the men God meant should know 
The heart of the Barrier snow, 
By the heat of the sun, and the glow 
And the glare from the glistening floe, 
As it scorched and froze us through and through 
With the bite of the drifting snow. 
These verses were written by Dr. Wilson for the South Polar Times. 
It was characteristic of the man that he sent them in typewritten, 
lest the editor should recognise his hand and judge them on personal 
rather than literary grounds. Many of their readers confess that 
they felt in these lines Wilson's own premonition of the event. 
