POETRY.
THE FUR-SEAL.
WHERE earth's eternal fires have starred The bleak Aleutian Chain With smould'ring picquet-posts that guard The parting of the main, Sullen the clustered mountains vault Beneath their misty shroud, Furrowed and scarred with bare basalt, To meet the low-hung cloud.
To northward, ten score dreary miles, Dropped from a dripping sky, Lonely and lost to view, the Isles Of Pribyloff outvie In wonder all the breathless tales That human hearts have stirred, For there the girdling surf assails The birthplace of the Herd.
Ah, where can man's enchanted gaze Review an equal scene Of wonderment and deep amaze The distant poles between, As when the mists desert the sky And rank by rank reveal Before the wide, astonished eye The Armies of the Seal ?
On Polavina's rocky ledge, On Upadnie's parades, As sand upon the ocean's edge Are squadrons and brigades ; From Tolstoi Headland's frowning walls In serried files they stand To where the sleek hollustchak hauls On grey Lukamson Sand.
On roaring rookery-slopes the cows In teeming harems are, They drink the drifting mist and drowse, Or watch their lords at war; With sense alert to check the raid Of fierce abducting foes, The scarred and surly bulls blockade Their packed seraglios.
When daylight dies and shadows mask The rare sun's dreaded glance, The mighty hosts haul up to bask Upon the dim expanse: The tangled wisps:of scud that race Across the fitful moon Hide from the murmuring herd her face Reside the still lagoon.
Where shall a man the like survey
From pole to distant pole ?
To apprehend in dense array That countless muster-roll, As when the misty curtains part, Wind-riven, and reveal, Encampe d the far-flung flats athwart, The Armies of the Seal. L. S. lirGGs.
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