The Arctic Queen, page 39 by Unknown
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l.
A hell-like spot! and spirits of the doomed
Were scarce more haggard than the clumsy elves
Who here pursued their coarse and perilous toil.
'Tis in these horrible caverns, deep and wide,
Each day the ocean sinks, when, rushing round
With the swift world, he falls into this snare;
From whence with groans, and anger impotent,
He backward struggles to his bed of sand
And lies there panting; while the credulous earth,
Dreaming of love, looks on him with a smile,
Saying--"He pineth for the sweet-faced Moon;"--
Thus had he just receded, when the pair
Stood peering shuddering in, hearing afar
The painful sighs, which shook his savage breast.
The dwarfish elves, with waning lamps in hand,
Creeping like worms along the slimy floor,
Pursued the ebbing tide collecting spoils.
The lovers saw from what exhaustless mines
Were gathered up the overwhelming wealth--
The jewels and the curious costly toys
Which graced OENE and all her splendid court;
For there the sea,--forever wrecking treasures,
Gulping down golden argosies at once--
Leaves them behind him in his angry flight.
"Art thou afraid, my darling?" BERTHO asked--
"I'll bear thee safely through this hideous place.
Here LUCIFER, I think, must love to linger;
The shrieking of the ocean hath a sound
Like the united wail of hopeless souls;
Here darkness dwells in everlasting sleep;
For these poor, puny lights which wander round,
Scarce make the drowsy lashes of his lids
Tremble o'er his blind eyes;--the heated earth
Gives forth the odors of her burning heart,
In whose incessant fires her vitals wither.
See! where those wretched gnomes are dragging chests,
Banded with iron! most like, is heaped within
The ingots of some drowned West-Indian:
And look! ah heaven! how beautiful and strange,
To see the delicate corpse of this young girl
Like marble petrified, the raven