Barb'd with the lected snow, the driving hail,
Rush the fierce arrows of the polar gale;
And thro' the dim, unvaried, ling'ring hours,
Wide o'er the waves incumbent horror low'rs.

From the rude fummit of

yon

frozen steep, Contrasting Glory gilds the dreary deep! Lo!-deck'd with vermeil youth and beamy grace, Hope in her step, and gladness in her face, Light on the icy rock, with outstretch'd hands, 'The Goddess of the new Columbus ftands. Round her bright head the plumy * Peterels foar, Blue as her robe, that sweeps the frozen shore ; Glows her foft cheek, as vernal mornings fair, And warm as summer-suns her golden hair; O'er the hoar waste her radiant glances stream, And courage kindles in the magic beam. She points the ship its mazy path, to thread + The floating fragments of the frozen bed.

While o'er the deep in many a dreadful form, The giant Danger howls along the storm, Furling the firon fails with numbed hands, Firm on the deck the great Adventurer flands ;

* Peterels foar.—The peterel is a bird found in the frozen feas ; its neck and tail are white, and its wings of a bright blue.

# The floating fragments.--". In the course of the laft twenty-four hours, we passed through several fields of broken ice ; they were in general narrow, but of confiderable extent.

In one part the pieces of ice were so close, that the Ship had much difficulty to thread them."

# Furling the iron fails.--". Our fails and rigging were so frozen, that they seemed plates of iron."

Round glittring mountains hears the billows' rave,
And the * vast ruin thunder on the wave.-

Appallid he hears ! --but checks the rising sigh,
And torns on his firm band a glist’ning eye.-
Not for himself the sighs unbidden break,
Amid the terrors of the icy wreck ;
Not for himself fțarts the impaffion'd tear,
Congealing as it falls ;--nor pain, nor fear,
Nor Death's dread darıs, impede the great design,
Till + Nature draws the circumscribing line.
Huge rocks of ice th' arrested ship embay,
And bar the gallant Wanderer's dangerous way.
His eye regretful marks the Goddess turn
Th' affiduous prow

from its relentless bourn.

And now antarctic Zealand's drear domain
Frowns, and o'erhangs th' in hospitable main.
On it's chill beach this dove of human-kind
For his long-wandering foot short relt fall find,
Bear to the coast the f olive-branch in vaiv,
And quit on wearied wing the hottile plain.

And the vall ruin --The breaking of one of thefe immense mountains of ice, and the prodigious noise it made, is particularly described in Cook's second yoyage to the south Pole.

+ Till Nature, &c.-" After running four leagues this course, with the ice on our starboard fide, we found ourselves quite embay'd, the ice extending from northnorth-east, round by the west and south, to east, in one compact body; the weather was tolerably clear, yet we could see no end to it."

† The olive-branch.-". To carry a green branch in the hand on landing, is a pacific signal, universally understood by all the islanders in the South Seas."

With jealous low'r the frowning natives view
The stately vessel, and th’advent'rous chew;
Nor fear the brave, nor emulate the good,
But scowl with favage thirst of human blood !

And yet

there were, who in this iron clime Soar'd o'er the herd on Virtue's wing sublime ; Rever'd the stranger-guest, and smiling strove To soothe his stay with hospitable love ! Fann'd in full confidence the tender flame, Join'd plighted hands, and * name exchang'd for name. To these the Hero leads f his living store, And pours new wonders on th' uncultur'd shore; The filky fleece, fair fruit, and golden grain ; And future herds and harvests bless the plain. O'er the green soil his Kids exulting play, And sounds his clarion loud the Bird of day ; The downy Goose her ruffled bosom laves, Trims her white wing, and wantons in the waves ; Stern moves the Bull along th' affrighted shores, Apd countless nations tremble as he roars.

So when the Daughter of eternal Jove,
And Ocean's God, to bless their Athens (trove,

* And name exchang’d.The exchange of names is a pledge of amity among these islanders, and was fre. quently proposed by them to Captain Cook and his people; so also is the joining noses.

+ His living fore.-Captain Cook left various kinds of animals upon this coaft, together with garden-seeds, &c. The Zealanders had hitherto fubfifted upon fish, and such coarse vegetables as their climate produced, and this want of better provision, it is supposed, induced them to the horrid practice of eating human flesh.

The masly trident with gigantic force
Cleaves the firm earth-and gives the stately Horse;
He paws the ground impatient of the rein,
Shakes his high front and thunders o'er the plain,
Then Wisdom's Goddess plants the embryon seed,
And bids new foliage hade the sultry mead;
'Mid the pale green the tawny olives shine,
And famith'd thousands bless the hand divine.

Now the warm solstice o'er the fhining bay, Darts from the north its inild meridian

ray ; Again the Chief invokes the rising gale, And spreads again in desart seas the sail ; O'er dangerous shoals his steady steerage keeps, O’er * walls of coral ambush'd in the deeps; Strong Labour's hands the crackling cordage twine, And † Deepless Patience heaves the founding-line.

On a lone beach a rock-built temple stands,
Stupendous pile ! unwrought by mortal hands;
Sublime the ponderous turrets rise in air,
And the wide roof basaltic columns bear;

* Wall's of coral.-- The coral rocks are described as rising perpendicularly from the greatest depths of the ocean, insomuch that the founding-line could not reach their bottom ; and yet they were but just covered with water. Theie rocks are now found to be fabricated by fea-infects.

+ And Neepless Patience." We had now pailed several months with a man conflantly in the chains heav. ing the lead.”

| A rock-built temple.—“ On one part of this ifle there was a solitary rock, rising on the coast with arched cavities, like a majestic temple."

Thro' the long ailles the murm'ring tempefto blow,
And Ocean chides his dalhing waves below,
From this fair fane, along the silver sands,
Two fifter-virgins wave their snowy hands;
First * gentle Flora round her smiling brow
Leaves of new forms, and flow'rs uncultur'd glow;
Thin folds of † vegetable filk, behind,
Shade her white neck, and wanton in the wind;
Strange sweets where'er the turns, perfume the glades,
And fruits unnam'd adorn the bending shades.
- Next Fauna treads, in youthful beauty's pride,
A playful + Kangroo bounding by her lide;
Around the Nymph her beauteous Pois display
Their varied plumes, and trill the dulcet lay;

* First gentle Flora.—Flora is the Goddess of modern Botany, and Fauna of modern Zoology: hence the pupils of Linnæuscall their books Flora Anglicam Fauna Danica, &c.-" The Flora of one of these ilands contain'd thirty new plants."

† Vegetable filk.-In New-Zealand is a flag of which the natives make their nets and cordage. The fibres of this vegetable are longer and stronger than our hemp and fax; and some manufactured in London, is as white and glofly as fine filk. This valuable vegetable will probably grow in our climate. .

I A playful Kangro.-The kangroo is an animal peculiar to those climates. It is perpetually jumping along on its hind legs, its fore legs being too short to be used in the manner of other quadrupeds.

|| Beauteous Pois.-" The poi-bird, common in those countries, has feathers of a fine mazarine blue, except those of the neck, which are of a beautiful filgrey ;

and two or three short white ones, which are in the pinion-joint of the wing. Under its throat hang

Y

ver