“What hope can scale this icy wall,
          High o’er the main flag-staff? 
        Above the ridges the wolf and bear
        Look down with a patient settled stare,
          Look down on us and laugh.”

        “The summer, went, the winter came—­
          We could not rule the year;
        But summer will melt the ice again,
        And open a path to the sunny main,
          Whereon our ships shall steer.”

        The winter went, the summer went,
          The winter came around: 
        But the hard green ice was strong as death,
        And the voice of hope sank to a breath,
          Yet caught at every sound.

        “Hark! heard ye not the noise of guns? 
          And there, and there again?”
        “’Tis some uneasy iceberg’s roar,
          As he turns in the frozen main.”

        “Hurrah! hurrah! the Esquimaux
          Across the ice-fields steal: 
        God give them grace for their charity!”
          “Ye pray for the silly seal.”

        “Sir John, where are the English fields,
          And where are the English trees,
        And where are the little English flowers
          That open in the breeze?”

        “Be still, be still, my brave sailors! 
          You shall see the fields again,
        And smell the scent of the opening flowers,
          The grass, and the waving grain.”

        “Oh! when shall I see my orphan child? 
          My Mary waits for me.” 
        “Oh! when shall I see my old mother,
          And pray at her trembling knee?”

        “Be still, be still, my brave sailors! 
          Think not such thoughts again.” 
        But a tear froze slowly on his cheek;
          He thought of Lady Jane.

        Ah! bitter, bitter grows the cold,
          The ice grows more and more;
        More settled stare the wolf and bear,
          More patient than before.

        “Oh! think you, good Sir John Franklin,
          We’ll ever see the land? 
        ’Twas cruel to send us here to starve,
          Without a helping hand.

        “’Twas cruel, Sir John, to send us here,
          So far from help and home,
        To starve and freeze on this lonely sea: 
        I ween, the Lord of the Admiralty
          Would rather send than come.”

        “Oh! whether we starve to death alone,
          Or sail to our own country,
        We have done what man has never done—­
        The truth is found, the secret won—­
          We passed the Northern Sea!”

PHADRIG CROHOORE.

BY JAMES SHERIDAN LE FANU.

Oh, Phadrig Crohoore was a broth of a boy,
            And he stood six feet eight;
And his arm was as round as another man’s thigh,—­
            ’Tis Phadrig was great.