An Arctic Vision

Where the short-legged Esquimaux     Waddle in the ice and snow,     And the playful Polar bear     Nips the hunter unaware;     Where by day they track the ermine,     And by night another vermin,     Segment of the frigid zone,     Where the temperature alone     Warms on St. Elias cone;     Polar dock, where Nature slips     From the ways her icy ships;     Land of fox and deer and sable,     Shore end of our western cable,     Let the news that flying goes     Thrill through all your Arctic floes,     And reverberate the boast     From the cliffs off Beecheys coast,     Till the tidings, circling round     Every bay of Norton Sound,     Throw the vocal tide-wave back     To the isles of Kodiac.     Let the stately Polar bears     Waltz around the pole in pairs,     And the walrus, in his glee,     Bare his tusk of ivory;     While the bold sea-unicorn     Calmly takes an extra horn;     All ye Polar skies, reveal your     Very rarest of parhelia;     Trip it, all ye merry dancers,     In the airiest of Lancers;     Slide, ye solemn glaciers, slide,     One inch farther to the tide,     Nor in rash precipitation     Upset Tyndalls calculation.     Know you not what fate awaits you,     Or to whom the future mates you?     All ye icebergs, make salaam,     You belong to Uncle Sam!     On the spot where Eugene Sue     Led his wretched Wandering Jew,     Stands a form whose features strike     Russ and Esquimaux alike.     He it is whom Skalds of old     In their Runic rhymes foretold;     Lean of flank and lank of jaw,     See the real Northern Thor!     See the awful Yankee leering     Just across the Straits of Behring;     On the drifted snow, too plain,     Sinks his fresh tobacco stain,     Just beside the deep inden-     Tation of his Number 10.     Leaning on his icy hammer     Stands the hero of this drama,     And above the wild-ducks clamor,     In his own peculiar grammar,     With its linguistic disguises,     La! the Arctic prologue rises:     Wall, I reckon taint so bad,     Seein ez twas all they had.     True, the Springs are rather late,     And early Falls predominate;     But the ice-crops pretty sure,     And the air is kind o pure;     Taint so very mean a trade,     When the land is all surveyed.     Theres a right smart chance for fur-chase     All along this recent purchase,     And, unless the stories fail,     Every fish from cod to whale;     Rocks, too; mebbe quartz; lets see,     Twould be strange if there should be,     Seems Ive heerd such stories told;     Eh! why, bless us, yes, its gold!     While the blows are falling thick     From his California pick,     You may recognize the Thor     Of the vision that I saw,     Freed from legendary glamour,     See the real magicians hammer.