e
Through that bewildering labyrinth of ice.
For weeks the Sun, a pale and sinking ghost,
With feeble eyes had glared upon the Pole.
Nor with his wavering arrows could o'erthrow
Even the airy domes of delicate sprites,
Sitting and decking their etherial robes
And turning them, sparkling, to his sullen face.

"Now from OENE's dominions, messengers,
Borne by the flying winds, hourly arrived,
Warning me from her shores. At last the Queen,
Gathered together her enormous fleet;
It bore down upon us with such grand array
As I pray heaven never to see again.
An hundred giant ships, whose rainbow sails
And glittering masts towered a thousand feet
Above our tiny vessels, weighed their anchors
And slowly from their harbors drifted out.
We heard the creaking of their cables--heard
The shouting of their fierce and naked crews--
We saw the green sea boil against their keels--
Their viewless banners flapped against our faces--
Their viewless darts pierced us on every side
Till men fell on our decks, a stony heap.
We strove, at least, to make a brave retreat,
Toiling in mute dispair, or madly praying
The winds to favor our poor, shattered sails.
They closed around us upon every side.
Two of the largest of their avenging fleet,
Drawing together crushed in the embrace
My stoutest vessel like some frailest shell;
Then swung apart, with laughter on their decks,
Showing me, where my noble friends had been,
Only a seething gulf. The sweat of anguish
Froze into hail upon my pallid brow,
When, with another shriek of agony,
The brother ship went down. At length the winds,
Saving us only from more sudden death,
Drove us upon the rocks beneath this mount.
Five years had wasted all our store of food;
But, seeing monsters like this beast of prey,
Some of the least exhausted boldly forth
Went to destroy them--I amid the rest,--
But stupor and a drowsy sweetness came
Over our eyes, and we lay down to sleep--
Waking to hear the mocking laugh of ghouls,
To find us chained, enslaved,--and, worse than all!
Lost from our corporal bodies--spirits--dead!

"I, as the leader of the intruding band,
Am doomed to wander on this mountain side,
A century, before my restless ghost,
Freed from the thraldom of weird OENE's power,
Regains its nat