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Glens, fountains, caves, that seem not things of earth,

But the wild shapes of some prodigious birth;
As if the kraken, monarch of the sea,

Wallowing abroad in his immensity,

By polar storms and lightning shafts assail'd,

-He comes, he comes; th' infuriate Geyser springs
Up to the firmament on vapoury wings;
With breathless awe the mounting glory view;

White whirling clouds his steep ascent pursue.

But lo! a glimpse ;-refulgent to the gale,

Wedged with ice-mountains, here had fought and fail'd; He starts all naked through his riven veil ;

Perish'd-and in the petrifying blast,

His hulk became an island rooted fast:1

-Rather, from ocean's dark foundation hurl'd,
Thou art a type of his mysterious world,
Buoy'd on the desolate abyss, to show
What wonders of creation hide below.

Here Hecla's triple peaks, with meteor lights, Nature's own beacons, cheer hybernal nights: But when the orient flames in red array,

Like ghosts the spectral splendours flee the day;
Morn at her feet beholds supinely spread
The carcass of the old chimera dead,
That wont to vomit flames and molten ore,
Now cleft asunder to the inmost core;

A fountain-column, terrible and bright,

A living, breathing, moving form of light:

From central earth to heaven's meridian thrown,
The mighty apparition towers alone,
Rising, as though for ever he could rise,
Storm and resume his palace in the skies.
All foam, and turbulence, and wrath below,
Around him beams the reconciling bow
(Sigual of peace, whose radiant girdle binds,
Till nature's doom, the waters and the winds ;)
While mist and spray, condensed to sudden dews,
The air illumine with celestial hues,

As if the bounteous sun were raining down
The richest gems of his imperial crown.
In vain the spirit wrestles to break free,

In smouldering heaps, wide wrecks and cinders strown, Foot-bound to fathomless captivity;

Lie like the walls of Sodom overthrown

(Ere from the face of blushing Nature swept, And where the city stood the Dead Sea slept); While inaccessible, tradition feigns,

To human foot the guarded top remains, Where birds of hideous shape and doleful note, Fate's ministers, in livid vapours float.

Far off, amidst the placid sunshine, glow Mountains with hearts of fire and crests of snow, Whose blacken'd slopes with deep ravines entrench'd, Their thunders silenced, and their lightnings quench'd, Still the slow heat of spent eruptions breathe, While embryo earthquakes swell their wombs beneath.

Hark! from yon cauldron cave, the battle sound Of fire and water warring under ground; Rack'd on the wheels of an ebullient tide, Here might some spirit, fall'n from bliss, abide, Such fitful wailings of intense despair, Such emanating splendours fill the air.3

! The most horrible of fabulous sea-monsters is the kraken or

hafgefa, which many of the Norway fishers pretend to have seen in part, but none entire. They say, that when they find a place which is at one time 80 or 100 fathoms deep and at another only 20 or 30. and also observe a multitude of fishes, allured by a delicious exbalation which the kraken emits, they conclude that there is one below them. They therefore hasten to secure a large draught of the fry around them; but as soon as they perceive the soundings to grow shallower, they scud away, and from a safe distance behold him rising in a chain of ridges and spires, that thicken as they emerge till they resemble the masts of innumerable vessels moored on a rocky coast. He then riots upon the fish that have been stranded and entangled in the forest of spikes upon his back, and baving satiated his hunger, plunges into the depths with a violent agitation of the waters. See Crantz's Greenland.

Hecla is now the ruins of a volcano. The three peaks are said to be baanted by evil spirits in the shape of birds. The island

abounds with volcanic mountains.

The Geysers, or boiling fountains, of Iceland, have been so frequently and so happily described, that their phenomena are sufficiently familiar to general readers not to require any particular illustration here. The Great Geyser, according to Dr Henderson (the latest traveller who has published an account of Iceland), is seventy-eight feet in perpendicular depth, and from eight to ten feet in diameter: the mouth is a considerable basin, from which the column of boiling vater is ejaculated to various heights; sometimes exceeding 100 feet.

A

power unseen, by sympathetic spell
For ever working,-to his flinty cell,
Recalls him from the ramparts of the spheres;
He yields, collapses, lessens, disappears;
Darkness receives him in her vague abyss,
Around whose verge light froth and bubbles hiss,
While the low murmurs of the refluent tide
Far into subterranean silence glide,

The eye still gazing down the dread profound,
When the bent ear hath wholly lost the sound.
-But is he slain and sepulchred ?—Again
The deathless giant sallies from his den,
Scales with recruited strength the ethereal walls,
Struggles afresh for liberty,-and falls.
Yes, and for liberty the fight renew'd,
By day, by night, undaunted, unsubdued,
He shall maintain, till Iceland's solid base
Fail, and the mountains vanish from its face.

And can these fail?-Of Alpine height and mould Schapta's unshaken battlements behold: His throne an hundred hills; his sun-crown'd head Resting on clouds; his robe of shadow spread O'er half the isle; he pours from either hand An unexhausted river through the land, On whose fair banks, through valleys warm and green, Cattle and flocks, and homes, and spires are seen. Here Nature's earthquake pangs were never felt; Here in repose hath man for ages dwelt; The everlasting mountain seems to say, . I am, and I shall never pass away."

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Yon rosy groupes, with golden locks, at play,
I see them,-few, decrepit, silent, grey;
Their fathers all at rest beneath the sod,
Whose flowerless verdure marks the House of God,
Пlome of the living and the dead ;-where meet
Kindred and strangers, in communion sweet,
When dawns the Sabbath on the block-built pile;
The kiss of peace, the welcome, and the smile
Go round; till comes the Priest, a father there,
And the bell knolls his family to prayer;
Angels might stoop from thrones in heaven, to be
Co-worshippers in such a family,

One crust of lava, through whose cinder-heat
The pulse of buried streams is felt to beat;
These form the frequent fissures, eddying white,
Sublimed to vapour, issue forth like light
Amidst the sulphury fumes that, drear and dun,
Poison the atmosphere and blind the sun.
Above, as if the sky had felt the stroke
Of that volcano, and consumed to smoke,
One cloud appears in heaven, and one alone,
Hung round the dark horizon's craggy zone,
Forming at once the vast encircling wall,
And the dense roof of some Tartarean hall,

Whom from their nooks and dells, where'er they roam, Propt by a thousand pillars, huge and strange,

The Sabbath gathers to their common home.

Oh! I would stand a keeper at this gate
Rather than reign with kings in guilty state;
A day in such serene enjoyment spent
Were worth an age of splendid discontent!
-But whither am I hurried from my theme?
Schapta returns on the prophetic dream.

From eve till morn strange meteors streak the pole;
At cloudless noon mysterious thunders roll,
As if below both shore and ocean hurl'd
From deep convulsions of the nether world.
Anon the river, boiling from its bed,

Shall leap its bounds and o'er the lowlands spread,
Then waste in exhalation,-leaving void
As its own channel, utterly destroy'd,

Fields, gardens, dwellings, churches and their graves,
All wreck'd or disappearing with the waves.
The fugitives that 'scape this instant death
Inhale slow pestilence with every breath;
Mephitic steams from Schapta's smouldering breast
With livid horror shall the air infest;
And day shall glare so foully on the sight,
Darkness were refuge from the curse of light.
Lo! far among the glaciers, wrapt in gloom,
The red precursors of approaching doom,
Scatter'd and solitary founts of fire,
Unlock'd by hands invisible, aspire;

Ere long more rapidly than eye can count,
Above, beneath, they multiply, they mount,
Converge, condense,-a crimson phalanx form,
And rage aloft in one unbounded storm;

From heaven's red roof the fierce reflections throw
A sea of fluctuating light below.

-Now the whole army of destroyers, fleet
As whirlwinds, terrible as lightnings, meet;
The mountains melt like wax along their course,
When downward, pouring with resistless force,
Through the void channel where the river roll'd,
To ocean's verge their flaming march they hold;
While blocks of ice, and crags of granite rent,
Half-fluid ore, and rugged minerals blent,
Float on the gulf, till molten or immersed,
Or in explosive thunderbolts dispersed.
Thus shall the Schapta, towering on the brink
Of unknown jeopardy, in ruin sink ;
And this wild paroxysm of frenzy past,
At her own work shall Nature stand aghast.

Look on this desolation:- mark yon brow, Once adamant, a cone of ashes now: Here rivers swamp'd; there valleys levell'd, plains O'erwhelm'd;-one black-red wilderness remains,

Fantastic forms that every moment change,
As hissing, surging from the floor beneath,
Volumes of steam th' imprison'd waters breathe.
Then should the sun, ere evening gloom ascend,
Quick from the west the murky curtain rend,
And pour the beauty of his beams between
These hideous arches, and light up the scene;
At the sweet touch of his transforming rays
With amber lustre all the columns blaze,
And the thick folds of cumbrous fog aloof
Change to rich drapery of celestial woof:
With such enchantment air and earth were fraught,
Beyond the colouring of the wealthiest thought,
That Iceland Scalds, transported at the view,
Might deem the legends of their fathers true,
And here behold, illumining the waste,
The palace of immortal Odin placed;
Till rapt imagination joy'd to hear

The neigh of steeds, the clank of armour near,
And saw, in barbarous state, the tables spread
With shadowy food, and compass'd with the dead,
Weary from conflicts,-still the fierce delight
Of spectre-warriors, in the daily fight:

Then while they quaff'd the mead from sculls of foes,
By whirlwind gusts the din of battle rose ;
The strife of tongues, the tournament of words
Following the shock of shields, the clash of swords;
Till, gorged and drunken at th' enormous feast,
Awhile their revels and their clamours ceased;
Ceased to the eye and ear;-yet where they lay,
Like sleeping lions, surfeited with prey,
In tawny groups, recumbent through the den,
In dreams the heroes drank and fought again.

Away with such Divinities! their birth Man's brain-sick superstition, and their mirth Lust, rapine, cruelty;-their fell employ God's works and their own votaries to destroy. -The Runic Bard-to nobler themes shall string His ancient harp, and mightier triumphs sing: For glorious days are risen on Iceland :-clear The gospel trumpet sounds to every ear, And deep in many a heart the Spirit's voice Bids the believing soul in hope rejoice. O'er the stern face of this tempestuous isle, Though briefly Spring, and Autumn never, smile, Truth walks with naked foot th' unyielding snows, And the glad desert blossoms like the rose. Though earthquakes heave, though torrents drown his

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Like dying Stephen, when he saw in prayer
Heaven open'd, and his Saviour beckoning there,
He cries, and clasps his Bible to his breast,
Let the earth perish,-here is not my rest.

CANTO III.

The Voyage to Greenland concluded.-A Fog at Sea.Ice-fields.-Eclipse of the Sun.-The Greenland fable of Melina and Aninga.- A Storm.-The Ice-blink. -Northern Lights.-The Brethren land.

How speed the faithful witnesses, who bore
The Bible and its hopes to Greenland's shore?
-Like Noah's ark, alone upon the wave
(Of one lost world th' immeasurable grave),
Yonder the ship, a solitary speck,

Comes bounding from the horizon; while on deck
Again imagination rests her wing,

And smoothes her pinions, while the Pilgrims sing
Their vesper-orisons.-The Sun retires,
Not as he wont, with clear and golden fires;
Bewilder'd in a labyrinth of haze,

His orb redoubled, with discolour'd rays,
Struggles and vanishes;-along the deep,
With slow array, expanding vapours creep,
Whose folds, in twilight's yellow glare uncurl'd,
Present the dreams of an unreal world;
Islands in air suspended; marching ghosts
Of armies, shapes of castles, winding coasts,
Navies at anchor, mountains, woods, and streams,
Where all is strange, and nothing what it seems;
Till deep involving gloom, without a spark
Of star, moon, meteor, desolately dark,

Seals up
the vision:-then the Pilot's fears
Slacken his arm; a doubtful course he steers,
Till morning comes, but comes not clad in light;
Uprisen day is but a paler night,
Revealing not a glimpse of sea or sky;

The ship's circumference bounds the sailor's eye.
So cold and dense th' impervious fog extends,
He might have touch'd the point where being ends;
His bark is all the universe; so void
The scene, as though creation were destroy'd,
And he and his few mates, of all their race,
Were here becalm'd in everlasting space.2

1 One of the finest specimens of Icelandic poetry extant is said to be the Ode to the British and Foreign Bible Society, composed by the Rev. John Thorlakson, of Bægisà, the translator of Milton's Paradise Lost into his native tongue. Of this Ode there is a Latin translation by the learned Iceland Professor, Finn Magnusson. A spirited English version has also appeared. Thorlakson is a venerable old man, and holds church preferment to the amount of six pounds five shillings per annum, out of which he allows a stipend

to a curate.

The incidents described in this Canto are founded upon the real events of the voyage of the Missionaries, as given in Crantz's History.

He says:- On the 10th of April the Brethren went on board the king's ship Caritas, Captain Hildebrand, accompanied with many sincere wishes for blessing from the court (of Denmark) and all benevolent minds. The congregation at Herrnhut had a custom, from the year 1729, before the commencement of a year, to compile a little manual, containing a text of Holy Scripture for every day in the same, and each illustrated or applied by a verse annexed, out of the hymn-book. This text was called the word of the day;

Silent and motionless, above, below,

The sails all struck, the waves unheard to flow, In this drear blank of utter solitude,

Where life stands still, no faithless fears intrude; Through that impervious veil the Brethren see The face of omnipresent Deity:

Nor Him alone;-whate'er his hand hath made;
His glory in the firmament display'd;
The sun majestic in his course, and sole;
The moon and stars rejoicing round the pole;
Earth o'er its peopled realms and wastes unknown,
Clad in the wealth of every varying zone;
Ocean through all th' enchantment of his forms,
From breathing calms to devastating storms;
Heaven in the vision of eternal bliss,
Death's terrors, hell's unsearchable abyss;
-Though rapt in secrecy from human eye,
These in the mind's profound sensorium lic,
And, with their Maker, by a glance of thought,
Are, in a moment, to remembrance brought;
Then most, when most restrain'd th' imperfect sight,
God and his works shine forth in his own light.
Yet clearest through that veil the Pilgrims trace
Their Father's image in their Saviour's face;
A sigh can waft them to his feet in prayer,
Not Gabriel bends with more acceptance there,
Nor to the throne from heaven's pure altar rise
The odours of a sweeter sacrifice,
Than when before the mercy-seat they kneel
And tell Him all they fear, or hope, or feel:
Perils without, and enemies within,
Satan, the world, temptation, weakness, sin;
Yet rest unshaken on his sure defence,
Invincible through his omnipotence.

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it was given to be the subject of meditation with each member of the church in private, and of discourse by the ministers in the public meeting. Many a time it has been found that the word of the day, on which some peculiar event occurred, has remarkably coincided with it. Thus on this 10th of April, when our brethren set sail (from Copenhagen) on a mission, which often afterwards seemed to baffle all hope, the word was (Heb. xi, 1), 'Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.'

We view Him, whom no eye can see, With faith's perspective stedfastly.

In this confidence they set sail, nor did they suffer themselves to be confounded by any of the unspeakable difficulties of the following years, till they and we at last beheld the completion of what they hoped for by faith. They had a speedy, and, excepting some storms, a commodious voyage. They sailed by Shetland April 226, passing there out of the North into the West Sea, or long reach, and entered Davis's Straits about the beginning of May. On the 6th they fell among some floating ice, in a thick fog, and the next day were assailed by a terrible tempest, but this very tempest drove the ice so far asunder, that it also dissipated their fears. The 13th they descried land, but on the same day, after a total eclipse of the sun, there arose a violent storm, that lasted four days and nights, and drove them sixty leagues back. May the 20th, they entred Ball's River, after a voyage of six weeks. The word of the day was, The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ. By this they were frequently encouraged in the first years ensuing, amidst all the opposition which they encountered, and the small prospect of the conversion of the heathens..

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And step by step the Lord those suppliants led; He them daily grace like daily bread; gave

By sea, on shore, through all their pilgrimage,
In rest and labour, to their latest age,

Sharp through their trials, and their comforts scant,
God was their refuge, and they knew not want.

recedes:

On rustling pinions, like an unseen bird, Among the yards a stirring breeze is heard; The conscious vessel wakes as from a trance, Her colours float, the filling sails advance; White from her prow the murmuring surge -So the swan, startled from her nest of reeds, Swells into beauty, and with curving chest, Cleaves the blue lake, with motion soft as rest. Light o'er the liquid lawn the pageant glides; Her helm the well-experienced pilot guides, And while he threads the midst-enveloped maze, Turns to the magnet his inquiring gaze, In whose mute oracle, where'er he steers, The pointing hand of Providence appears ; With this, though months of gloom the main enrobe, His keel might plough a furrow round the globe.

Again the night ascends without a star;
Low sounds come booming o'er the waves afar,
As if conflicting navies shook the flood,
With human thunders, in the strife of blood,
That slay more victims in one brief campaign,
Than heaven's own bolts through centuries have slain.
The seaman hearkens;-colour flies his cheek,

His stout heart throbs with fears he dare not speak :
No lightning-splendours streak th' unbroken gloom;
-His bark may shoot the gulf beyond the tomb,
And he, if e'er it come, may meet a light,
Which never yet hath dawn'd on living sight.
Fresher and fresher blows th' insurgent gale;
He reefs his tops, he narrows sail by sail,
Yet feels the ship with swifter impulse sweep
O'er mightier billows, the recoiling deep;
While still, with doleful omen on his ear,
Come the deaf echoes of those sounds of fear,
Distant, yet every volley rolls more near.

Oh! in that agony of thought forlorn,
How longs th' impatient mariner for morn!
She wakes, his eyes are wither'd to behold
The scene which her disastrous beams unfold;
The fog is vanish'd, but the welkin lowers,
Sharp hail descends, and sleet in blinding showers;
Ocean one bed of foam, with fury tost,
In undistinguishable whiteness lost,

Save where vast fields of ice their surface show.
Buoyant, but many a fathom sunk below:
Changing his station as the fragments pass,
Death stands the pilot of each ponderous mass;
Gathering his brow into the darkest frown,
Hle bolts his raft to run the victim down,
But shoots astern :-the shock the vessel feels,
A moment in the giddy whirlpool reels,
Then like an arrow soars, as through the air,
So high the salient waves their burthen bear.

Quick skirmishes with floating batteries past, Ruin inevitable threats at last:

Athwart the north, like ships of battle spread,
Winter's flotilla, by their captain led,

(Who boasts with these to make his prowess known,
And plant his foot beyond the arctic zone),
Islands of ice, so wedged and grappled lie,
One moving continent appals the eye,

And to the ear renews those notes of doom,

That brought portentous warnings through the gloom;
For loud and louder, with explosive shocks,
Sudden convulsions split the frost-bound rocks,
And launch loose mountains on the frothing ooze,
As pirate-barks, on summer seas to cruise.
In front this perilous array;-behind,
Borne on the surges, driven by the wind,
The vessel hurries to the brink of fate;
All efforts fail, but prayer is not too late:
Then, in the imminent and ghastly fall
Foul on destruction, the disciples call
On Him, their Master, who, in human form,
Slept in the lap of the devouring storm;
On Him, who in the midnight watch was seen,
Walking the gulf ineffably serene,

At whose rebuke the tempest ceased to roar,
The winds caress'd the waves, the waves the shore:
On Him they call;—their prayer, in faith preferr'd,
Amidst the frantic hurricane is heard

He gives the sign, by none in earth or heaven
Known, but by him to whom the charge is given,
The Angel of the Waters;-he, whose wrath
Had hurl'd the vessel on that shipwreck path,
Becomes a minister of grace;-his breath
Blows, and the enemies are scatter'd,-Death,
Reft of his quarry, plunges through the wave,
Buried himself where he had mark'd their grave.
The line of battle broken, and the chain
Of that armada, which oppress'd the main,
Snapt hopelessly asunder, quickly all
Th' enormous masses in disruption fall,
And the weak vessel, through the chaos wild,
Led by the mighty Angel,-as a child,
Snatch'd from its crib, and in the mother's arms
Borne through a midnight tumult of alarms,—
Escapes the wrecks; nor slackens her career,
Till sink the forms, and cease the sounds of fear,
And He, who rules the universe at will,
Saith to the reinless elements, . Be still.»

Then rise sweet hymns of gratulation; praise From hearts and voices, in harmonious lays;So Israel sang deliverance, when he stood By the Red Sea, and saw the morning-flood, That in its terrible embraces bore

The slain pursuers and their spoils on shore.

Light-breathing gales awhile their course propel,
The billows roll with pleasurable swell,
Till the seventh dawn; when o'er the pure expanse
The sun, like lightning, throws his earliest glance,
Land! Land! exclaims the ship-boy from the Last,
Land! Land! with one electric shock hath pass'd
From lip to lip, and every eye hath caught
The cheering glimpse so long, so dearly sought:
Yet must imagination half supply

The doubtful streak, dividing sea and sky;
Nor clearly known, till in sublimer day,
From icy cliffs refracted splendours play,

| And clouds of sca-fowl high in ether sweep,
Or fall like stars through sunshine on the deep.
'Tis Greenland! but so desolately bare,
Amphibious life alone inhabits there;
'Tis Greenland! yet so beautiful the sight,
The Brethren gaze with undisturb'd delight:
In silence (as before the Throne), they stand,
And pray, in prospect of that promised land,
That He, who sends them thither may abide
Through the waste bowling wilderness their guide;
And the good shepherd seek his straying flocks,
Lost on those frozen waves and herbless rocks,
By the still waters of his comforts lead,
And in the pastures of salvation feed.

Their faith must yet be tried :-the sun at noon
Shrinks from the shadow of the passing moon,
Till, ray by ray, of all his pomp bereft
(Save one slight ring of quivering lustre left),
Total eclipse involves his peerless eye:
Portentous twilight creeps around the sky;
The frighted sea-birds to their haunts repair;
There is a freezing stillness in the air,

As if the blood through Nature's veins ran cold,
A prodigy so fearful to behold;

A few faint stars gleam through the dread serene,
Trembling and pale spectators of the scene;
While the rude mariners, with stern amaze,
As on some tragic execution gaze,

When calm but awful guilt is stretch'd to feel
The torturing fire, or dislocating wheel,
And life, like light from yonder orb, retires,
Spark after spark, till the whole man expires.
Yet may the darken'd sun and mourning skies
Point to a higher, holier sacrifice;

The Brethren's thoughts to Calvary's brow ascend,
Round the Redeemer's Cross their spirits bend,
And while heaven frowns, earth shudders, graves disclose
The forms of sleepers, startled from repose,
They catch the blessing of his latest breath,
Mark his last look, and through th' eclipse of death
See lovelier beams than Tabor's vision shed,
Wreathe a meek halo round his sacred head.
To Greenland then, with quick compassion, turn
Their deepest sympathies; their bosoms burn
To her barbarian race, with tongues of flame,
His love, his grief, his glory to proclaim.

0 could they view, in this alarming hour,
Those wretched ones, themselves beneath the power
Of darkness, while the shadow clips the sun!
How to their dens the fierce sea-hunters run,
Who death in every shape of peril brave,
By storms and monsters, on the faithless wave,
But now in speechless horror lie aghast,
Till the malignant prodigy be past:
While bolder females, with tormenting spells,
Consult their household dogs as oracles,
And by the yelping of their curs divine,
That sull the earth may stand, the sun may shine.
Then forth they creep, and to their offspring tell
What fate of old a youth and maid befell:

The Greenlanders believe that the sun and moon are sister and brother. They, with other children, were once playing together in the dark, when Aninga behaving rudely to his sister Malina, she rubbed her hands in the soot about the extinguished lamp, and

How, in the age of night, ere day was born
On the blue hills of undiscover'd morn,

Where one pale cresset twinkled through the shade,.
Malina and her gay companions play'd

A thousand mimic sports, as children wont;
They hide, they seek, they shoot, harpoon and hunt;
When lo! Aninga, passionate and young,
Keen as a wolf, upon his sister sprung,

And pounced his victim;-gentler way to woo
He knew not, or he scorn'd it if he knew:
Malina snatch'd her lamp, and in the dark
Dash'd on his felon-front a hideous mark,
Slipp'd from his foul embrace (and laugh'd aloud),
Soft as the rainbow melting from the cloud;
Then shot to heaven, and in her wondrous flight
Transform'd her image, sparkled into light,
Became the sun, and through the firmament,
Forth in the glory of a goddess went.
Aninga baffled, madden'd, unsubdued,
By her own beams the fugitive pursued,
And when she set, his broad disfigured mien
As the dim moon among the stars was seen;
Thenceforward doom'd his sister's steps to chase,
But ne'er o'ertake in heaven's eternal race.
Yet when his vanish'd orb might seem to sleep,
He takes his monthly pastime on the deep,
Through storms, o'er cataracts, in his Kayak sails,
Strikes with unerring dart the polar whales,
Or o'er ice-mountains, in his dog-drawn car,
Pursues the rein-deer to the farthest star.
But when eclipse his baneful disk invades,
He prowls for prey among the Greenland maids,
Till roaring drums, belabouring sticks, and cries
Repel the errant Demon to the skies,

The sun hath cast aside his veil;-he shines With purest splendour till his orb declines; Then landward, marshalling in black array, Eruptive vapours drive him from the day; And night again, with premature controul, Binds light in chains of darkness o'er the pole; Heaven in one ebon mass of horror scowls; -Anon a universal whirlwind howls:

smeared his face, that she might discover by day-light who was her tormentor; and thus the dusky spots on the moon had their origin; for she, struggling to escape, slipped out of his arms, soared aloft, and became the sun. He followed up into the firmament, and was transformed into the moon; but as he has never been able to rise so high as she, he continues running after her, with the vain hope of overtaking her. When he is tired and bungry, in his last quarter, he sets out from his bouse a seal-bunting, on a sledge drawn by four great dogs, and stays several days abroad to recruit and fatten; and this produces the full moon. He rejoices when the women die, and Malina, in revenge, rejoices when the men die: therefore the men keep at home during an eclipse of the sun, and the women during an eclipse of the moon. When he is in eclipse, Aninga prowls about the dwellings of the Greenlanders, to plague the females, and steal provisions and skins, nay even to kill those persons who have not daly observed the laws of temperance. At these times they hide their most precious goods; and the men carry kettles and chests to the to, s of their houses, and rattle upon them with cudgels to frighten away the moon, and make him return to his place in the sky. During an eclipse of the sun, the men skulk in terror into the darkest corners, while the women pinch the ears of their dogs; and if these cry out, it is a sure omen that the end of the world is not yet come; for as dogs existed before men, according to Greenland logic, they must have a quicker foresight into futurity. Should the dogs be mute (which of course they never are, under such ill treatment), then the dissolution of all things must be at hand.-See Crantz.

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