208 SELECT POETRY

From the deep sea’s verge to the zenith high,
At one vast leap they flew,

And kindled a blaze in the midnight sky,
O’er the glittering icebergs blue.

The frolicsome waves they shouted to me,
As I swept their thousands past,
“ Where are the chains that can fetter the sea ?”—
- But I bound the boasters fast.

In their pride of strength, the pine trees tall
Of my coming took no heed ;

But I bowed the proudest of them all,
As if it had been a reed.

I found the tops of the mountains bare,
And I gave them a crown of snow;
And roused the hungry wolf from his lair,

To hunt the Esquimaux.

‘I saw where lay in the forest spent
The fire of the embers white ;

And I breathed on the lordly element,
And nursed it into might.

It floateth amain, my banner red,
With a proud and lurid glare ;

And the fir-clad hills, as torches dread,
Flame in the wintry air.

O’er valley and hill and mere! I range,
And, as I sweep along,
Gather all sounds that are wild and strange,
And mingle them in my song.
1 Mere—a large lake.