a thousand feet
    Above our tiny vessels, weighed their anchors
    And slowly from their harbors drifted out. 
    We heard the creaking of their cables—­heard
    The shouting of their fierce and naked crews—­
    We saw the green sea boil against their keels—­
    Their viewless banners flapped against our faces—­
    Their viewless darts pierced us on every side
    Till men fell on our decks, a stony heap. 
    We strove, at least, to make a brave retreat,
    Toiling in mute dispair, or madly praying
    The winds to favor our poor, shattered sails. 
    They closed around us upon every side. 
    Two of the largest of their avenging fleet,
    Drawing together crushed in the embrace
    My stoutest vessel like some frailest shell;
    Then swung apart, with laughter on their decks,
    Showing me, where my noble friends had been,
    Only a seething gulf.  The sweat of anguish
    Froze into hail upon my pallid brow,
    When, with another shriek of agony,
    The brother ship went down.  At length the winds,
    Saving us only from more sudden death,
    Drove us upon the rocks beneath this mount. 
    Five years had wasted all our store of food;
    But, seeing monsters like this beast of prey,
    Some of the least exhausted boldly forth
    Went to destroy them—­I amid the rest,—­
    But stupor and a drowsy sweetness came
    Over our eyes, and we lay down to sleep—­
    Waking to hear the mocking laugh of ghouls,
    To find us chained, enslaved,—­and, worse than all! 
    Lost from our corporal bodies—­spirits—­dead!

    “I, as the leader of the intruding band,
    Am doomed to wander on this mountain side,
    A century, before my restless ghost,
    Freed from the thraldom of weird OENE’s power,
    Regains its natural liberty, and soars
    Into the paradise of happy souls. 
    This is the punishment those mortals bear,
    Who, venturing into this strange Arctic world,
    Are vanquished by its sovereign.  She hath power,
    The source of which I know not, to retain
    The souls of mortals for an hundred years,
    Demanding service which they needs must pay. 
    The gloomy caverns underneath this mount,
    And those which in the hearts of icebergs lie,
    And many by the sea, are filled with those
    Who work their ransom out with tedious toil. 
    For me—­I am not put to any task—­
    My punishment to gaze afar and see
    How cruelly all friends from distant shores,
    Who dare attempt my rescue, are restrained. 
    Alas; the North-west Passage!  When the day
    Glinted o’er this pale land, before my sight
    In devious tracery that Passage lay;
    Mocking me with its undeveloped truth,
    Wealth unappropriated, glory lost! 
    Cruel is she who took from me that substance