Ode To Captain Paery[1]

"By the North Pole, I do challenge thee!"         Love's Labour's Lost.     I.     Parry, my man! has thy brave leg     Yet struck its foot against the peg     On which the world is spun?     Or hast thou found No Thoroughfare     Writ by the hand of Nature there     Where man has never run!     II.     Hast thou yet traced the Great Unknown     Of channels in the Frozen Zone,     Or held at Icy Bay,     Hast thou still miss'd the proper track     For homeward Indian men that lack     A bracing by the way?     III.     Still hast thou wasted toil and trouble     On nothing but the North-Sea Bubble     Of geographic scholar?     Or found new ways for ships to shape,     Instead of winding round the Cape,     A short cut thro' the collar?     IV.     Hast found the way that sighs were sent to     The Pole - tho' God knows whom they went to!     That track reveal'd to Pope -     Or if the Arctic waters sally,     Or terminate in some blind alley,     A chilly path to grope?     V.     Alas! tho' Ross, in love with snows,     Has painted them couleur de rose,     It is a dismal doom,     As Clauclio saith, to Winter thrice,     "In regions of thick-ribbed ice" -     All bright, - and yet all gloom!     VI.     'Tis well for Gheber souls that sit     Before the fire and worship it     With pecks of Wallsend coals,     With feet upon the fender's front,     Roasting their corns - like Mr. Hunt -     To speculate on poles.     VII.     'Tis easy for our Naval Board -     'Tis easy for our Civic Lord     Of London and of ease,     That lies in ninety feet of down,     With fur on his nocturnal gown,     To talk of Frozen Seas!     VIII.     'Tis fine for Monsieur Ude to sit,     And prate about the mundane spit,     And babble of Cook's track -     He'd roast the leather off his toes,     Ere he would trudge thro' polar snows,     To plant a British Jack!     IX.     Oh, not the proud licentious great,     That travel on a carpet skate,     Can value toils like thine!     What 'tis to take a Hecla range,     Through ice unknown to Mrs. Grange,     And alpine lumps of brine?     X.     But we, that mount the Hill o' Rhyme,     Can tell how hard it is to climb     The lofty slippery steep,     Ah! there are more Snow Hills than that     Which doth black Newgate, like a hat,     Upon its forehead, keep.     XI.     Perchance thou'rt now - while I am writing -     Feeling a bear's wet grinder biting     About thy frozen spine!     Or thou thyself art eating whale,     Oily, and underdone, and stale,     That, haply, cross'd thy line!     XII.     But I'll not dream such dreams of ill -     Rather will I believe thee still     Safe cellar'd in the snow, -     Reciting many a gallant story,     Of British kings and British glory,     To crony Esquimaux -     XIII.     Cheering that dismal game where Night     Makes one slow move from black to white     Thro' all the tedious year, -     Or smitten by some fond frost fair,     That comb'd out crystals from her hair,     Wooing a seal-skin dear!     XIV.     So much a long communion tends,     As Byron says, to make us friends     With what we daily view -     God knows the daintiest taste may come     To love a nose that's like a plum     In marble, cold and blue!     XV.     To dote on hair, an oily fleece!     As tho' it hung from Helen o' Greece -     They say that love prevails     Ev'n in the veriest polar land -     And surely she may steal thy hand     That used to steal thy nails!     XVI.     But ah, ere thou art fixed to marry,     And take a polar Mrs. Parry,     Think of a six months' gloom -     Think of the wintry waste, and hers,     Each furnish'd with a dozen furs,     Think of thine icy dome!     XVII.     Think of the children born to blubber!     Ah me! hast thou an Indian rubber     Inside! - to hold a meal     For months, - about a stone and half     Of whale, and part of a sea calf -     A fillet of salt veal! -     XVIII.     Some walrus ham - no trifle but     A decent steak - a solid cut     Of seal - no wafer slice!     A reindeer's tongue and drink beside!     Gallons of sperm - not rectified!     And pails of water-ice!     XIX.     Oh, canst thou fast and then feast thus?     Still come away, and teach to us     Those blessed alternations -     To-day to run our dinners fine,     To feed on air and then to dine     With Civic Corporations -     XX.     To save th' Old Bailey daily shilling,     And then to take a half-year's filling     In P.N.'s pious Row -     When ask'd to Hock and haunch o' ven'son,     Thro' something we have worn our pens on     For Longman and his Co.     XXI.     O come and tell us what the Pole is -     Whether it singular and sole is, -     Or straight, or crooked bent, -     If very thick or very thin, -     Made of what wood - and if akin     To those there be in Kent?     XXII.     There's Combe, there's Spurzheim, and there's Gall,     Have talk'd of poles - yet, after all,     What has the public learn'd?     And Hunt's account must still defer, -     He sought the poll at Westminster -     And is not yet return'd!     XXIII.     Alvanly asks if whist, dear soul,     Is play'd in snow-towns near the Pole,     And how the fur-man deals?     And Eldon doubts if it be true,     That icy Chancellors really do     Exist upon the seals!     XXIV.     Barrow, by well-fed office grates,     Talks of his own bechristen'd Straits,     And longs that he were there;     And Croker, in his cabriolet,     Sighs o'er his brown horse, at his Bay,     And pants to cross the mer!     XXV.     O come away, and set us right,     And, haply, throw a northern light     On questions such as these: -     Whether, when this drown'd world was lost.     The surflux waves were lock'd in frost,     And turned to Icy Seas!     XXVI.     Is Ursa Major white or black?     Or do the Polar tribes attack     Their neighbors - and what for?     Whether they ever play at cuffs,     And then, if they take off their muffs     In pugilistic war?     XXVII.     Tells us, is Winter champion there,     As in our milder fighting air?     Say, what are Chilly loans?     What cures they have for rheums beside,     And if their hearts get ossified     From eating bread of bones?     XXVIII.     Whether they are such dwarfs - the quicker     To circulate the vital liquor, -     And then, from head to heel -     How short the Methodists must choose     Their dumpy envoys not to lose     Their toes in spite of zeal?     XXIX.     Whether 'twill soften or sublime it     To preach of Hell in such a climate -     Whether may Wesley hope     To win their souls - or that old function     Of seals - with the extreme of unction -     Bespeaks them for the Pope?     XXX.     Whether the lamps will e'er be "learn'd"     Where six months' "midnight oil" is burn'd     Or Letters must confer     With people that have never conn'd     An A, B, C, but live beyond     The Sound of Lancaster!     XXXI.     O come away at any rate -     Well hast thou earn'd a downier state -     With all thy hardy peers -     Good lack, thou must be glad to smell dock,     And rub thy feet with opodeldock,     After such frosty years.     XXXII.     Mayhap, some gentle dame at last,     Smit by the perils thou hast pass'd.     However coy before,     Shall bid thee now set up thy rest     In that Brest Harbor, woman's breast,     And tempt the Fates no more!