The pardon'd soldier! And while yet the conflict raged around, While yet his life-blood ebbed away through every gaping

wound

While yet his voice grew tremulous, and death bedimmed his eye

He called his comrades to attest he had not feared to die. And in his last expiring breath, a prayer to heaven was sent, That God, with His unfailing grace, would bless our Presiunt.

SIR JOHN FRANKLIN.-GEORGE H. BOKER.
The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around.-COLERIDGE.

"O, whither sail you, Sir John Franklin ?"
Cried a whaler in Baffin's Bay.

"To know if between the land and the pole
I may find a broad sea-way."

"I charge you back, Sir John Franklin,
As you would live and thrive;

For between the land and the frozen pole
No man may sail alive."

But lightly laughed the stout Sir John,
And spoke unto his men :-

"Half England is wrong, if he is right;
Bear off to the westward then.'

"O, whither sail you, brave Englishman?"
Cried the little Esquimaux.

"Between the land and the polar star
My goodly vessels go."

"Come down, if you would journey there,"
The little Indian said;

"And change your cloth for fur clothing,
Your vessel for a sled."

But lightly laughed the stout Sir John,
And the crew laughed with him too;
"A sailor to change from ship to sled,
I ween, were something new."

All through the long, long polar day,
The vessels westward sped;

And wherever the sail of Sir John was blown,

The ice gave way and fled

Gave way with many a hollow groan,

And with many a surly roar ;

But it murmured and threatened on every side,

And closed where he sailed before.

"Ho! see ye not, my merry men,
The broad and open sea?
Bethink ye what the whaler said,
Think of the little Indian's sled!"
The crew laughed out in glee.

“Sir John, Sir John, 'tis bitter cold,
The scud drives on the breeze,
The ice comes looming from the north,
The very sunbeams freeze."

"Bright summer goes, dark winter comes-
We cannot rule the year;

But long ere summer's sun goes down,
On yonder sea we'll steer."

The dripping icebergs dipped and rose,
And floundered down the gale;

The ships were stayed, the yards were manned,
And furled the useless sail.

"The summer's gone, the winter's come,

We sail not on yonder sea;

Why sail we not, Sir John Franklin?"
A silent man was he.

"The summer goes, the winter comes-
We cannot rule the year;

I ween, we cannot rule the ways,
Sir John, wherein we'd steer."

The cruel ice came floating on,
And closed beneath the lee,

Till the thickening waters dashed no more,— 'Twas ice around, behind, before-

My God! there is no sea!

"What think you of the whaler now? What of the Esquimaux?

A sled were better than a ship,

To cruise through ice and snow."

Down sank the baleful crimson sun,
The Northern Light came out,

And glared upon the ice-bound ships,
And shook its spears about.

The snow came down, storm breeding storm,

And on the decks was laid;

Till the weary sailor, sick at heart,
Sank down beside his spade.

"Sir John, the night is black and long,
The hissing wind is bleak,

The hard, green ice is strong as death;
I prithee, Captain, speak!"

"The night is neither bright nor short,
The singing breeze is cold,
The ice is not so strong as hope-
The heart of man is bold."

"What hope can scale this icy wall,
High o'er the main flag-staff?
Above the ridges the wolf and bear
Look down with a patient, settled stare,
Look down on us and laugh."

The summer went, the winter came-
We could not rule the year;

But summer will melt the ice again,
And open a path to the sunny main,
Whereon our ships shall steer.

The winter went, the summer went,
The winter came around;

But the hard, green ice was strong as death,
And the voice of hope sank to a breath,
Yet caught at every sound.

"Hark! heard you not the noise of guns?
And there, and there again?"
""Tis some uneasy iceberg's roar,

As he turns in the frozen main."

"Hurrah! hurrah! the Esquimaux Across the ice-fields steal."

"God give them grace for their charity!
Ye pray for the silly seal."

"Sir John, where are the English fields?
And where are the English trees?
And where are the little English flowers
That open in the breeze?"

"Be still, be still, my brave sailors!

You shall see the fields again,

And smell the scent of the opening flowers,

The grass and the waving grain.'

"Oh! when shall I see my orphan child?

My Mary waits for me."

"Oh! when shall I see my old mother,

66

And pray at her trembling knee?""

'Be still, be still, my brave sailors,
Think not such thoughts again!"
But a tear froze slowly on his cheek;
He thought of Lady Jane.

Ah! bitter, bitter grows the cold,
The ice grows more and more;
More settled stare the wolf and bear,
More patient than before.

“Oh! think you, good Sir John Franklin,
We'll ever see the land?

"Twas cruel to send us here to starve,
Without a helping hand.

""Twas cruel to send us here, Sir John,
So far from help or home,

To starve and freeze on this lonely sea:
I ween the Lords of the Admiralty
Had rather send than come."

"Oh! whether we starve to death alone,
Or sail to our own country,

We have done what man has never done-
The open ocean danced in the sun-
We passed the Northern Sea!"

KANE.-FITZ-JAMES O'BRIEN.

DIED FEBRUARY 19, 1857.

Aloft upon an old basaltic crag,

Which, scalped by keen winds that defend the Pole,
Gazes with dead face on the seas that roll

Around the secret of the mystic zone,
A mighty nation's star-bespangled flag
Flutters alone,

And underneath, upon the lifeless front
Of that drear cliff, a simple name is traced;
Fit type of him who, famishing and gaunt,
But with a rocky purpose in his soul,
Breasted the gathering snows,
Clung to the drifting floes,

By want beleaguered, and by winter chased,
Seeking the brother lost amid that frozen waste.

Not many months ago we greeted him,

Crowned with the icy honors of the North, Across the land his hard-won fame went forth, And Maine's deep woods were shaken limb by limb. His own mild Keystone State, sedate and prim, Burst from decorous quiet as he came. Hot Southern lips, with eloquence aflame, Sounded his triumph. Texas, wild and grim, Proffered its horny hand. The large-lunged West, From out his giant breast,

Yelled its frank welcome.

And from main to main,

Jubilant to the sky,

Thundered the mighty cry,

HONOR TO KANE!

In vain-in vain beneath his feet we flung
The reddening roses! All in vain we poured
The golden wine, and round the shining board
Sent the toast circling, till the rafters rung

With the thrice-tripled honors of the feast!
Scarce the buds wilted and the voices ceased
Ere the pure light that sparkled in his eyes,
Bright as auroral fires in Southern skies,

Faded and faded! And the brave young heart
That the relentless Arctic winds had robbed
Of all its vital heat, in that long quest
For the lost captain, now within his breast
More and more faintly throbbed.

His was the victory; but as his grasp
Closed on the laurel crown with eager clasp,
Death launched a whistling dart;
And ere the thunders of applause were done
His bright eyes closed forever on the sun!
Too late too late the splendid prize he won
In the Olympic race of science and of art!
Like to some shattered berg that, pale and lone,
Drifts from the white North to a tropic zone,
And in the burning day

Wastes peak by peak away,
Till on some rosy even
It dies with sunlight blessing it; so he
Tranquilly floated to a Southern sea,
And melted into heaven.

He needs no tears, who lived a noble life!
We will not weep for him who died so well;
But we will gather round the hearth, and tell
The story of his strife,

Such homage suits him well;
Better than funeral pomp, or passing bell.

What tale of peril and self-sacrifice!

Prisoned amid the fastnesses of ice,

With hunger howling o'er the wastes of snow!
Night lengthening into months; the ravenous floe
Crunching the massive ships, as the white bear
Crunches his prey. The insufficient share
Of loathsome food;

The lethargy of famine: the despair
Urging to labor, nervelessly pursued;
Toil done with skinny arms, and faces hued