60
SONGS, LEGENDS, AND BALLADS.
'They're floating still,' I've said to myself,
'And Sir John has found the goal;
The Erebus and the Terror, mates,
Are icebergs up at the Pole!'
"We sailed due North, to Baffin's Bay,
And cruised through weeks of light;
'Twas always day, and we slept by the bell.
And longed for the dear old night,
And the blessed darkness left behind,
Like a curtain round the bed;
But a month dragged on like an afternoon
With the wheeling sun o'erhead.
We found the whales were farther still,
The farther north we sailed;
Along the Greenland glacier coast,
The boldest might have quailed,
Such shapes did keep us company;
No sail in all that sea,
But thick as ships in Mersey's tide
The bergs moved awfully
