Classic Poem

The little shipwrecked band, long tempest-tost,
Stood shivering, hopeless, on the inclement coast,
The frozen sea was white with drifted floes,
The Arctic winter round them whirled its snows,
A glittering plain of adamantine ice,
Crowned here and there with iceberg precipice;
O'erhead a sky where angry tempests haste,
And all around the illimitable waste!
Such the drear spot in far Siberian land—
A lifeless, lone, inhospitable strand—
No bending woods to cheer the desert space,
No friendly, sheltering roof the eye might trace,
No voice of human life or human toil,
No jocund carols where men till the soil;
But all is desolate and dark and drear,
A hopeless solitude, a place of fear.
And here assembl'd on that savage shore
These shipwrecked men their wretched fate deplore;
Perished with cold, and ghastly, grim and pale,
They shrink and feebly shiver in the gale.
Alas! poor, lost Jeannette! so fair to see,
Built to defy the rage of stormiest sea.
Ah! little dreamed they that this northern blast
Might rend the solid sides and rive the mast.
Ah then, with icy gyves and fetters bound,
And mighty ice floes clasped the vessel round,
It groaned, it trembled, as with throes of pain,
Then sank from sight forever in the main!
Were ne'er in village church of native land,
Were ne'er in famed cathedral, dim and grand,
Such heartfelt offerings as these rough men pay,
To their Creator on that fatal day.
Ah! there was little hope of happy life,
Of glad return to kindred, home and wife;
Ah! little hope for such delights as these
To cheer these victims of relentless seas.
All human help, all mortal aid seemed vain
To warm the life-blood in each frozen vein.
Famished with want, they still will conjure up
The precious food, the generous flowing cup,
And seemed to taste in fancy's dream once more
The sumptuous feastings they had known of yore.
Alas! for them no more the fond caress,
All the sweet joys of human tenderness,
The fireside bliss, the dear, domestic group,
The lamp-lit room, the festal, youthful troop,
The village square, the city's crowded street,
The cordial greetings from the friends you meet.
Here on the shores of Lena's frozen flood,
DeLong's sad crew with hearts despairing stood;
Then rose the chief, and with a drooping head
And swimming eyes the Sacred Service read;
Then hands were clasp'd, the farewell words they speak,
For two must go for helpful aid to seek,
They went, and rescue came, alas! too late,
The little starving band had met their fate!