And clouds of sea-fowl high in ether sweep, 'Tis Greenland! yet so beautiful the sight, the sun at noon Their faith must yet be tried As if the blood through Nature's veins ran cold, A few faint stars gleam through the dread serene, When calm but awful guilt is stretch'd to feel The Brethren's thoughts to Calvary's brow ascend, The forms of sleepers, startled from repose, O could they view, in this alarming hour, How, in the age of night, ere day was born Where one pale cresset twinkled through the shade A thousand mimic sports, as children wont; The sun hath cast aside his veil ;-he shines -Anon a universal whirlwind howls: light who was her tormentor; and thus the dusky spots on the moon had their origin; for she, struggling to escape, slipped out of his arms, soared aloft, and became the sun. He followed up into the firmament, and was transformed into the moon; but as he has never been able to rise so high as she, he continues running after her, with the vain hope of overtaking her. When he is tired and hungry, in his last quarter, he sets out from his house a seal-hunting, on a sledge drawn by four great dogs, and stays several days abroad to recruit and fatten; and this produces the full moon. He rejoices when the women die. and Malina, in revenge, rejoices when the men die: therefore the men keep at home during an eclipse of the sun, and the women during an eclipse of the moon. When he is in eclipse, Aninga prowls about the dwellings of the Greenlanders, to plague the females, and steal provisions and skins, nay even to kill those persons who have not duly observed the laws of temperance. At these times they hide their most precious goods; and the men carry kettles and chests to the tops of their houses, and rattle upon them with cudgels to frighten away the moon, and make him return to his place in the sky. During an eclipse of the sun, the men skulk in terror into the darkest corners, while the women pinch the ears of their dogs; and if these cry out, it is a sure omen that the end of the world is not yet come; 1 The Greenlanders believe that the sun and moon are sister for as dogs existed before men, according to Greenland logic. and brother. They, with other children, were once playing to- they must have a quicker foresight into futurity. Should the gether in the dark, when Aninga behaving rudely to his sister dogs be mute (which of course they never are, under such ill Molina, she rubbed her hands in the soot about the extinguished treatment), then the dissolution of all things must be at hand imp, and smeared his face, that she might discover by day--See Crantz. With such precipitation dash'd on high, To live and serve him is their Lord's decree; He curbs the wind, he calms th' infuriate sea; The sea and wind their Maker's yoke obey, And waft his servants on their destined way. Though many a league by that disaster driven "Thwart from their course, with plank and cordage riven, With hands disabled, and exhausted strength, "Tis sunset: to the firmament serene, Th' Atlantic wave reflects a gorgeous scene; Broad in the cloudless west, a belt of gold Girds the blue hemisphere; above unroll'd, The keen, clear air grows palpable to sight, Embodied in a flush of crimson light, Through which the evening star, with milder gleam, Descends to meet her image in the stream. Far in the east, what spectacle unknown Allures the eye to gaze on it alone? -Amidst black rocks, that lift on either hand A monument; where every flake that falls, To undermine it through a thousand caves; From age to age, in air, o'er sea, on land, Midnight hath told his hour; the moon, yet young, Hangs in the argent west her bow unstrung; Larger and fairer, as her lustre fades, Sparkle the stars amidst the deepening shades: Jewels more rich than night's regalia gem The distant Ice-Blink's spangled diadem; Like a new morn from orient darkness, there Phosphoric splendors kindle in mid air, As though from heaven's self-opening portals came Legions of spirits in an orb of flame, -Flame, that from every point an arrow sends, Far as the concave firmament extends: Spun with the tissue of a million lines, Glistening like gossamer the welkin shines: The constellations in their pride look pale Through the quick trembling brilliance of that vei Then suddenly converged, the meteors rush O'er the wide south; one deep vermilion blush O'erspreads Orion glaring on the flood, And rabid Sirius foams through fire and blood; Again the circuit of the pole they range, Motion and figure every moment change, 1 The term Ice-Blink is generally applied by our mariners to the nocturnal illumination in the heavens, which denotes to them the proximity of ice mountains. In this place a description is attempted of the most stupendous accumulation of ice in the known world, which has been long distinguished by this peculiar name by the Danish navigators, Through all the colors of the rainbow run, The seaman's jealous eye askance surveys But morning comes, and brings him sweet release; The fourth appears,-the loveliest and the last; CANTO IV. Retrospect of ancient Greenland:-The discovery of Iceland, of Greenland, of Wineland.-The Norwegian colonies on the eastern and western coasts of Greenland; the appearance of the Skraellings, or modern Greenlanders, in the west, and the destruction of the Norwegian settlers in that quarter. HERE while in peace the weary Pilgrims rest, And seek along its banks that vanish'd clime, And through the torpid north, with genial heat, As if existence were immortal here; 61 Five thousand years, unvisited, unknown, By stars that never set, their course they steer'd And northward with indignant impulse veer'd, Some hand had graven :-From what founder'd boat For sloth had lull'd and luxury o'errun, It fell-how long on ocean's waves afloat, From Asia's fertile womb, when Time was young, And bondage seized, the realms that loved the sun. : Menaced, repell'd and forced their track to change, 1 Among numerous incoherent traditions, it is recorded, that Iceland was first discovered by one Flokko, a pirate, who being bewildered at sea, let fly (as was the custom of the Nor wegians in such extremities) a raven, which, soaring to a great elevation, discerned land, and made for it. Flokko followed. and arriving at a mountainous coast covered with snow and 1 About the middle of the seventeenth century, an oar was glaciers, called it Iceland. Some time afterwards, about the drifted on the coast of Iceland, bearing this inscription in Ru-year 874, Ingolf, a Norwegian earl, with his vassals, escaping nic characters: Oft var ek dasa, dur ek dro thik. "Oft was I weary when I drew thee." This oar was conjectured to have been brought from East Greenland, a hundred and fifty years after the last ship sailed from Norway for that coast. from the tyranny of Harold Harfagar, pursued the same discovered Iceland; which he and his followers peopled, and course as Flokko, and, by the same experiment with a raven, there he established a commonwealth that reflected honor o. an age of barbarism. Divining as they drifted to the strand And Iceland shone, for generous lore renown'd, Ere long by brave adventurers on the tide, Thus Greenland (so that arctic world they named) For wealth exhaustless, which her seas could boast, Of groves and gardens, wine and music tell; wave, Whose genial streams, amidst disparted ice, Rather the muse would stretch a mightier wing, 1 Spenser introduces Prince Arthur as traversing the world in search of his mistress Gloriana, whom he had only seen in a dream. The discovery of a region in the west, by the Greenland Norwegians, about the year 1000, and intercourse maintained with it for 120 years afterwards, may be considered as the most curious fact or fable connected with the history of these colonists. The reason why it was called Wineland, is And growing glaciers deepen'd tow'rds the ground, given in the sequel. "T were long and dreary to recount in rhyme Nor stay we monkish legends to rehearse; An Icelander, named Bioern, in the year 1001, following his father, who had emigrated to Greenland, is said to have been driven by a storm to the south-west, where he discovered a fine champaign country covered with forests. He did not tarry long there, but made the best of his way back again, northeast, For Greenland, which he reached in safety. The tidings of bis adventure being rumored abroad there, one Leif the son of Eric the Red, a famous navigator, being ambitious of acquiring fame by discovering and planting new lands, fitted out a vessel, with thirty-five men, and sailed with Bioern on board, in search of the south-west country. They arrived, in due time, at a low woody coast, and sailed up a river to a spacious lake, which communicated by it with the sea. The soil was salmon, and the climate was mild. Leif and his party winterexceeding fruitful, the waters abounded with fish, particularly ed there, and observed that on the shortest day the sun rose about eight o'clock, which may correspond with the fortyninth degree of latitude, and denotes the situation of Newfoundland, or the river St. Lawrence in Canada.-When they had built their huts, after landing, they one day missed a German mariner named Tyrker, whom, after a long search, they found in the woods, dancing with delight. On being asked what made him so merry, he answered, that he had been eating such grapes of which wine was made in his native country. When Leif saw and tasted the fruit himself, he called the new region Vünland, or Wineland. Crantz, who gives this account, on various authorities, adds in a note, that "well flavored wild grapes are known to grow in the forests of Canada, but no good wine has been produced from them. "-After the return of Leif to Greenland, many voyages were underta 1 This device of superstition is borrowed from the tradition concerning Ingolf, and probably the same was frequently em-ken to Wineland, and some colonies established there. One ployed by the northern rovers, leaving their native country. Gudrid, the widow of the third son of Eric the Red, by whom Thorfin, an Icelander, who had married a Greenland heiress, and seeking a home in strange lands. 2 The extravagant accounts of the fertility of ancient Green-he obtained the inheritance of Wineland, ventured thither land need not be particularized here. Some of the annals with sixty-five men and five women; taking cattle and implestate, that the best wheat grew to perfection in the valleys; ments of husbandry with them, for the purpose of building that the forests were extensive and luxuriant; flocks and berds and planting. The natives (probably the Esquimaux) found were numerous, and very large and fat, etc. At St. Thomas's them thus settled, and were glad to barter with their furs and Cloister, there was a natural fountain of hot water (a geyser) skins in exchange for iron instruments, etc. One of these barwhich, being conveyed by pipes into all the apartments of the barians, however, having stolen an ax, was dolt enough to monks, ministered to their comfort in many ways. Adjoining try its edge on his companion's skull, which cost the poor this cloister there was a richly cultivated garden, through wretch his life; whereupon a third, wiser than either, threw which a warm rivulet flowed, and rendered the soil so fertile, the murderous weapon into the sea.-Commerce with Winethat it produced the most beautiful flowers, and the most deli- land is reported to have been carried on for upwards of an cious fruits. hundred years afterwards. And round Magellan's Straits, Fuego's shore, Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific roar. Regions of beauty there these rovers found, The flowery hills with emerald woods were crown'd; Spread o'er the vast savannas, buffalo herds Ranged without master; and the bright-wing'd birds Made gay the sunshine as they glanced along, Or turn'd the air to music with their song. Here from his mates a German youth had stray'd, Where the broad river cleft the forest glade; Swarming with alligator-shoals, the flood Blazed in the sun, or moved in clouds of blood; The wild boar rustled headlong through the brake; Like a live arrow leapt the rattle-snake; The uncouth shadow of the climbing bear Crawl'd on the grass, while he aspired in air; Anon with hoofs, like hail, the green-wood rang, Among the scattering deer a panther sprang: The stripling fear'd not, yet he trod with awe, As if enchantment breathed o'er all he saw, Till in his path uprose a wilding vine; -Then o'er his memory rush'd the noble Rhine; Home and its joys, with fullness of delight, So rapt his spirit, so beguiled his sight, That in those glens of savage solitude, Vineyards and corn-fields, towns and spires he view'd, And through the image-chamber of his soul, The days of other years like shadows stole; All that he once had been again he grew, Through every stage of life he pass'd anew; The playmates of his infancy were there, With dimpled cheeks, blue eyes, and flaxen hair; The blithe companions of his riper youth, And one whose heart was love, whose soul was truth. -When the quick-mingling pictures of that dream (Like broken scenery on a troubled stream, Where sky and landscape, light and darkness, run Through widening circles), harmonized in one; His father's cot appear'd, with vine-leaves drest, And clusters pendent round the swallow's nest; In front the little garden, at whose gate, Amidst their progeny his parents sate, He only absent;-but his mother's eye The rapture of a moment ;-in its birth Wineland the glad discoverers call'd that shore, Men that at home would sigh for unknown lands; Men of all weathers, fit for every toil, War, commerce, pastime, peace, adventure, spoil; Bold master-spirits, where they touch'd they gain'd Ascendance; where they fix'd their foot, they reign'd Both coasts they long inherited, though wide Dissever'd; stemming to and fro the tide, Free as the Syrian dove explores the sky, Their helm their hope, their compass in their eye, They found at will, where'er they pleased to roam, The ports of strangers or their northern home, Still 'midst tempestuous seas and zones of ice, Loved as their own, their unlost Paradise. -Yet was their Paradise for ever lost : War, famine, pestilence, the power of frost, Their woes combining, wither'd from the earth This late creation, like a timeless birth, The fruit of age and weakness, forced to light, Breathing awhile,-relapsing into night. Ages had seen the vigorous race, that sprung From Norway's stormy forelands, rock'd when young In ocean's cradle, hardening as they rose Like mountain-pines amidst perennial snows; -Ages had seen these sturdiest sons of Time Strike root and flourish in that ruffian clime, Commerce with lovelier lands and wealthier hold, Yet spurn the lures of luxury and gold, Beneath the umbrage of the Gallic vine, For moonlight snows and cavern-shelter pine, Turn from Campanian fields a lofty eye To gaze upon the glorious Alps, and sigh, Remembering Greenland; more and more endear'd, As far and farther from its shores they steer'd ; Greenland their world,-and all was strange beside; Look'd through a tear-she reach'd him with a sigh: Elsewhere they wandered; here they lived and died. Then in a moment vanish'd time and space, At length a swarthy tribe, without a name, At length his shipmates came; their laughter broke That seem'd created on the spot,—though born We hear the speech or music of our own, Roused to delight from drear abstraction start, And feel our country beating at our heart; In trans-Atlantic climes, and thither brought 1 The ancestors of the modern inhabitants first appeared on |