ch the other with surprise:--
She, sad at his abandonment of hope;
He, struck with mingled wonder and delight
To meet this woman, beautiful and young.

"Dear friend," she said, brushing away her tears,
"If thou wilt rest thee on this smoothest rock
And tell me who thou art, and whence did come,
And wherefore lingering here, pleased will I listen."

A smile stole o'er his pale, storm-beaten face.--
"I know thee now, from mother Eve descended,
By thy most feminine willingness to hear,
The sorrows which did claim thy ready tears
While they were but suspected. Sit thee down.
Five years it is since, with three stately ships
And sturdy crews to man them, one proud day
I sailed away from the great three-linked isle,
Under my fair Queen's sovereign patronage,
For the far Frigid Zone--the wild, the fierce,
The unknown Arctic seas--through their cold depths,
Their intricate, unmarked, majestic ways,
To find a North-West Passage: which wise men
And skillful mariners, learned of the sea,
Suspected, through the navigator's art
Might to the world be opened. High my heart
With courage and ambition swelled its tides,
Knowledge I had and skill, with enterprise;
And should I be successful, future times
Should know my name, and future mariners
Respect my fame and emulate my deeds.
But one faint spot was there in my proud heart,
And that was where my constant wife, at parting,
Shed sorrowful tears, until they did strike through,
A fear, into my breast, that nevermore
That faithful brow should lean to it again.

"To thee, if thou indeed hast safely passed
The horrors and the beauties of the sea,
I need not tell the ever-varying scenes
Of this most fearful voyage.

"Day by day
I studied in my cabin over charts;
Or, on the deck, learned of the sea and sky
The subtle mariner's ever-changeful lore.
Prosperous we were, till o'er the mystic bounds
Of OENE's realms I sailed; save now and then
Some noble sailor of my kindly crews
With tears we left upon the bloomless shores
Where birds nor flowers should ever bless his grave.
On--on--beyond all shores--or sights of dwarfs
Slaying the rein-deer by their snow-built huts:--
On, through the thickening perils of the way!
Methought I held within my brain the clu