The Greenland Convert

Mid-Winter in the arctic zone,On Greenland's sterile shore,The frozen bay forgets to moan,Though wildest tempests roar;No morn the shuddering skies to cheer,No sun the noon to light,Unpitying darkness, long and drear,Commingleth day with night.

Close in each subterranean cellThe shivering tenants clung,While snows on snows incessant fell,And whirlwind banners swung;Around the seal-fed lamp they drew,That spark of life to fan,Which gleam'd with feeble radiance throughThose effigies of man.

Keen frosts, like subtle serpents, stoleTo every secret nook,And from the pulses of the soulTheir lingering fervour took.Dire sounds! the fearful icebergs quake,The solid rocks are riven,As though opposing thunders spakeHarsh words of war in heaven.

Oppress'd by sorrow's hopeless ban,In this most dreary placeThere dwelt a desolated man,The last of all his race;One daughter, when the rest were dead,Long with her loving toneSustain'd his heart, but she had fled,And he was left alone.

"Beata! in the blissful climeWhere now thy lot is cast,Doth the young floweret reach its primeUnsmitten by the blast?Is there a sky without a cloud?An undeclining day?No famine-pang? no icy shroud?My angel-daughter, say!

Oh, speak once more, with one sweet toneConfirm the promise blest,Whose spirit hush'd the parting groanWhen thou didst sink to rest:"Thus rose amid the rayless gloomPoor Agusina's moan,As with his lost one in the tombHe held communion lone.

Oft, in the sacred Book of God,With tearful toil he sought,Till in his soul affliction's rodA peaceful moral wrought;

Till humbled at his Saviour's feetIn penitence he lay,And felt his pagan passions fleetOn prayer's soft breath away.

Stern sickness rack'd his aged frame,Unwonted torpor stole,And death all unresisted cameTo claim the ransom'd soul,Which, spreading wide a wondering wing,With song of triumph pastFrom vengeful winter's sharpest sting,High o'er the shrieking blast.

Red torches pierced the midnight gloomAs with the dead they hied,And burst Beata's stony tombTo lay him by her side;The lip so oft her sire that blest,No filial welcome gave,As brow to brow, and breast to breast,They fill'd that frost-bound grave.

Strange music mid the funeral rite!Sad dirges, soft and slow!Whence cometh, in this realm of night,Such melody of wo?A chapel-bell! Who bids it speakIn this forsaken bourne?And thus, with Sabbath sweetness, breakThe trance of those who mourn?

Thou know'st not? Praise to God above!The meek Moravian band,With all their habitudes of love,Have dared this fearful land:Hast thou not heard how Greenland's wild,Her everlasting snows,Beneath their husbandry have smiled,And blossom'd as the rose?

Their steps these saintly teachers turn'dTo yon sepulchral bed,And o'er their buried convert mourn'dAs for a brother dead;And there, with anthems' holy breath,With prayers of heavenward trust,They mark'd, as with a living wreath,Poor Agusina's dust.