"The St. Louis" by George Copway
Beneath the veil of northern skies,
Where frosts, and snows eternal meet
In wild array the wanderer's feet,
And all, above, beneath, around,
Is fast in icy fetters bound;
A gloomy, wild, a dreary waste
As ever the eye of man embraced;
Where shrub,—if shurb perchance be there,
Blooms not as elsewhere, fresh and fair;
But stinted, bare, and small of growth,
It nestles to the earth as loath
To spread its branches where the breeze
Which passes, kisses but to freeze;
And if a flower should rear its head
From such inhospitable bed,
When thawing snows may yield a day
To summer sun's resistless sway,
It is a flower which doth not blight
By frosts that clothe its leaves in white,
But smiles e'en from its bed of snow.
Like Hope upon the lap of Woe.
The reindeer there, roam, fleet and free,
And men as wild and fleet as he,—
Though small in size, of iron mould,—
No fear of storms,—no thought of cold,—
With limbs unchilled, unslackcned pace,
They fleetly follow in the chase,
From dawn till twilight paints the west,
Without a moment lent to rest,—
Then stretched at length upon the snows,
Till morn they find a sweet repose.
Ah! little knows the child of ease,—
Whom everything is cullcd to please,
To whom convenience every shore,
From North and South must yield its store,
And o'er whose well protected form
There never beats the freezing storm,—
Ah! little knows he of the woes
Which gather round the life of those
Who live, in nature's rudest mood,
In these deep haunts of solitude,—
For though the tempest's power hath wrought,
To their bold minds, with danger fraught,
Though youth and manhood, and old age
Succeed in their accustomed stage,
The body bared to every wind,—
The chase that leaves the deer behind,—
The frequent want, the frequent fast,
Break up life's healthful flow at last,
And leave a wreck 'tis dread to see,
Of what was once so bold and free.