XVII.

Think of the children born to blubber! 
Ah me! hast thou an Indian rubber
  Inside!—­to hold a meal
For months,—­about a stone and half
Of whale, and part of a sea calf—­
  A fillet of salt veal!—­

XVIII.

Some walrus ham—­no trifle but
A decent steak—­a solid cut
  Of seal—­no wafer slice! 
A reindeer’s tongue and drink beside! 
Gallons of sperm—­not rectified! 
  And pails of water-ice!

XIX.

Oh, canst thou fast and then feast thus? 
Still come away, and teach to us
  Those blessed alternations—­
To-day to run our dinners fine,
To feed on air and then to dine
  With Civic Corporations—­

XX.

To save th’ Old Bailey daily shilling,
And then to take a half-year’s filling
  In P.N.’s pious Row—­
When ask’d to Hock and haunch o’ ven’son,
Thro’ something we have worn our pens on
  For Longman and his Co.

XXI.

O come and tell us what the Pole is—­
Whether it singular and sole is,—­
  Or straight, or crooked bent,—­
If very thick or very thin,—­
Made of what wood—­and if akin
  To those there be in Kent?

XXII.

There’s Combe, there’s Spurzheim, and there’s Gall,
Have talk’d of poles—­yet, after all,
  What has the public learn’d? 
And Hunt’s account must still defer,—­
He sought the poll at Westminster—­
  And is not yet return’d!

XXIII.

Alvanly asks if whist, dear soul,
Is play’d in snow-towns near the Pole,
  And how the fur-man deals? 
And Eldon doubts if it be true,
That icy Chancellors really do
  Exist upon the seals!

XXIV.

Barrow, by well-fed office grates,
Talks of his own bechristen’d Straits,
  And longs that he were there;
And Croker, in his cabriolet,
Sighs o’er his brown horse, at his Bay,
  And pants to cross the mer!

XXV.

O come away, and set us right,
And, haply, throw a northern light
  On questions such as these:—­
Whether, when this drown’d world was lost. 
The surflux waves were lock’d in frost,
  And turned to Icy Seas!

XXVI.

Is Ursa Major white or black? 
Or do the Polar tribes attack
  Their neighbors—­and what for? 
Whether they ever play at cuffs,
And then, if they take off their muffs
  In pugilistic war?