k of by and by."

VII.

I dwelt upon that island lone
For many a wretched year,
Serving that mother seal and six
With kayak, line, and spear.
And strange to say, the little ones
No bigger ever grew;
But, strangest sight of all, they changed
From grey to brilliant blue.

VII.

"O set me free! O set me free!"
I cried in my despair,
For by enchantments unexplained
They held and kept me there.
"I will. But promise first," she said,
"You'll never more transfix
The father of a family,
With little children six."

IX.

"I promise!" Scarce the words had fled,
When, far upon the sea,
Careering gaily homeward went
My good kayak and me.
A mist rolled off my wond'ring eyes,
I heard my Nuna scream--
Like Simek with his walrus big,
I'd only had a dream!

The reception that this peculiar song met with was compound, though
enthusiastic. As we have said, Okiok was an original genius among his
people, who had never before heard the jingle of rhymes until he
invented and introduced them. Besides being struck by the novelty of
his verses, which greatly charmed them, they seemed to be much impressed
with the wickedness of killing the father of a family; and some of the
Eskimo widows then present experienced, probably for the first time in
their lives, a touch of sympathy with widowed seals who happened to have
large families to provide for.

But there was one member of the company whose thoughts and feelings were
very differently affected by the song of this national poet--this Eskimo
Burns or Byron--namely the wizard Ujarak. In a moment of reckless anger
he had challenged Okiok to combat, and, knowing that they would be
called on to enter the arena and measure, not swords, but intellects, on
the morrow, he felt ill at ease, for he could not hope to come off
victorious. If it had been the ordinary battle of wits in blank verse,
he might have had some chance he thought, but with this new and telling
jingle at the end of alternate lines, he knew that he must of a surety
fail. This was extremely galling, because, by the union of smartness,
shrewd common sense, and at times judicious silence, he had managed up
to that time to maintain his supremacy among his fellows. But on this
unlucky day he had been physically overcome by his rival Angut, and now
there was the prospect of being intellectually beaten by Okiok.

"Strange!" thought the wizard; "I wonder if it w