And babble of Cook's track-
He'd roast the leather off his toes,
Ere he would trudge thro' polar snows,
To plant a British Jack!
Oh, not the proud licentious great,
That travel on a carpet skate,
Can value toils like thine!
What 'tis to take a Hecla range,
Through ice unknown to Mrs. Grange,
And alpine lumps of brine!
But we, that mount the Hill o' Rhyme,
Can tell how hard it is to climb
The lofty slippery steep.
Ah! there are more Snow Hills than that
Which doth black Newgate, like a hat,
Upon its forehead keep.
Perchance thou'rt now-while I am writing-
Feeling a bear's wet grinder biting
About thy frozen spine!
Or thou thyself art eating whale,
Oily, and underdone, and stale,
That, haply, crossed thy line!
But I'll not dream such dreams of ill-
Rather will I believe thee still
Safe cellared in the snow-
Reciting many a gallant story,
Of British kings and British glory,
To crony Esquimaux—
Cheering that dismal game where Night
Makes one slow move from black to white
Thro' all the tedious year-
Or smitten by some fond frost fair,
That combed out crystals from her hair,
Wooing a seal-skin Dear!
So much a long communion tends,
As Byron says, to make us friends
With what we daily view-
God knows the daintiest taste may come
To love a nose that's like a plum
In marble, cold and blue!
To dote on hair, an oily fleece !
As tho' it hung from Helen o' Greece-
They say that love prevails
Ev'n in the veriest polar land—
And surely she may steal thy hand
That used to steal thy nails!
But ah, ere thou art fixt to marry,
And take a polar Mrs. Parry,
Think of a six months' gloom-
Think of the wintry waste, and hers,
Each furnished with a dozen furs,
Think of thine icy dome!
Think of the children born to blubber!
Ah me! hast thou an Indian rubber
Inside-to hold a meal
For months-about a stone and half
Of whale, and part of a sea calf—
A fillet of salt veal !—
Some walrus ham-no trifle but 1 decent steak-a solid cut
Of seal-no wafer slice!
reindeer's tongue and drink beside! allons of Sperm—not rectified! And pails of water-ice!
>h, canst thou fast and then feast thus? Still come away, and teach to us
Those blessed alternationso-day to run our dinners fine,
To feed on air and then to dine
With Civic Corporations—
To save th' Old Bailey daily shilling,
And then to take a half year's filling
In P. N.'s pious Row-
When asked to Hock and haunch o' ven'son,
Thro' something we have worn our pens on
For Longman and his Co.
O come and tell us what the Pole is-
Whether it singular and sole is—
Or straight, or crooked bent—
If very thick or very thin-
Made of what wood-and if akin
To those there be in Kent.
There's Combe, there's Spurzheim, and there's
Gall,
Have talked of poles-yet, after all,
What has the public learned?
And Hunt's account must still defer-
He sought the poll at Westminster-
And is not yet returned!
Alvanly asks if whist, dear soul,
Is played in snow-storms near the Pole,
And how the fur-man deals?
And Eldon doubts if it be true,
That icy Chancellors really do
Exist upon the seals!
Barrow, by well-fed office grates,
Talks of his own bechristened Straits,
And longs that he were there;
And Croker, in his cabriolet,
Sighs o'er his brown horse, at his Bay,
And pants to cross the mer!
come avay, and set us right. And. hariy, throw a northern light On viestions such as these:Whether. When this drowned world was lost, The Brinx waves were locked in frost, And turned to Ley Seas!
Is Usa Major white or black?
Or do the Piar tribes attack
Their neighbours-and what for?
Whether they ever play at cuffs,
And then, if they take off their muffs
In partistic war?
Tell us. is Winter champion there,
As in our milder fighting air?
Say, what are Cailly loans?
What cures they have for rheums beside,
And if their hearts gets ossified
From eating bread of bones ?
Whether they are such dwarfs-the quicker To direnlate the vital liquor
And then, from head to heel-
How short the Methodist must choose
Their dumpy envoys not to lose
Their toes in spite of zeal ?
Whether 'twill soften or sublime it
To preach of Hell in such a climate—
Whether may Wesley hope
To win their souls-or that old function
Of seals-with the extreme of unction—
Bespeaks them for the Pope?
Whether the lamps will e'er be "learned "
Where six months' "midnight oil" is burned,
Or Letters must defer
With people that have never conned
An A, B, C, but live beyond
The Sound of Lancaster!
O come away at any rate
Well hast thou earned a downier state-
With all thy hardy peers—
Good lack, thou must be glad to smell dock,
And rub thy feet with opodeldock,
After such frosty years.
Mayhap, some gentle dame at last,
Smit by the perils thou hast passed,
However coy before,
Shall bid thee now set up thy rest
In that Brest Harbour, Woman's breast,
And tempt the Fates no more.
ADDRESS TO R. W. ELLISTON, ESQUIRE,
"Do you know, you villain, that I am at this moment the greatest man living?"
OH! Great Lessee! Great Manager! Great Man!
Oh, Lord High Elliston! Immortal Pan
Of all the pipes that play in Drury Lane!
Macready's master! Westminster's high Dane!
(As Galway Martin, in the House's walls,
Hamlet and Doctor Ireland justly calls!)
Friend to the sweet and ever-smiling Spring!
Magician of the lamp and prompter's ring!
Drury's Aladdin ! Whipper-in of Actors!
Kicker of rebel-preface-malefactors!
Glass-blowers' corrector! King of the cheque-taker!
At once Great Leamington and Winston-Maker!
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