Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/267

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majestic glacier, do not blend one with the other. Each stands forth alone, clothed only with Solitude. Sable priestess of the Arctic winter, she has wrapped the world in a winding-sheet, and thrown her web and woof over the very face of Nature.

And I have gone out often into the Arctic night, and viewed Nature under varied aspects. I have rejoiced with her in her strength, and communed with her in repose. I have seen the wild burst of her anger, have watched her sportive play, and have beheld her robed in silence. I have walked abroad in the darkness when the winds were roaring through the hills and crashing over the plain. I have strolled along the beach when the only sound that broke the stillness was the dull creaking of the ice-tables, as they rose and fell lazily with the tide. I have wandered far out upon the frozen sea, and listened to the voice of the icebergs bewailing their imprisonment; along the glacier, where forms and falls the avalanche; upon the hill-top, where the drifting snow, coursing over the rocks, sang its plaintive song; and again I have wandered away to some distant valley where all these sounds were hushed, and the air was still and solemn as the tomb.

And it is here that the Arctic night is most impressive, where its true spirit is revealed, where its wonders are unloosed to sport and play with the mind's vague imaginings. The heavens above and the earth beneath reveal only an endless and fathomless quiet. There is nowhere around me evidence of life or motion. I stand alone in the midst of the mighty hills. Their tall crests climb upward, and are lost in the gray vault of the skies. The dark cliffs, standing against their slopes of white, are the steps of a vast