"A stunted, stern, uncouth, amphibious stock Hewn from the living marble of the rock Or sprung from mermaids, and in ocean's bed With orcs and seals in sunless caverns bred, They might have held, from unrecorded time Sole patrimony in that hideous clime, So lithe their limbs, so fenced their frames to bear The intensest rigours of the polar air; Nimble and muscular and keen to run The rein-deer down a circuit of the sun; To climb the slippery cliffs, explore their cells, And storm and sack the sea-birds citadels; In bands, through snows, the mother-bear to trace Slay with their darts the cubs in her embrace, And while she licked their bleeding wounds to brave Her deadliest vengeance in her inmost cave. Train'd with inimitable skill to float Each, balanced, in his bubble of a boat, With dexterous paddle, steering through the spray, With poised harpoon to strike his lunging prey As though the skiff, the seaman, car and dart Were one compacted body, by one heart With instinct, motion, pulse, empower'd to ride A human Nautilus upon the tide; Or with a fleet of Kayaks to assail The desperation of the stranded whale, When wedg'd twixt jagged rocks he writhes and rolls In agony among the ebbing shoals, Washing the waves to foam, until the flood From wounds like geysers seems a bath of blood, Echo all night dumb pealing to his roar Till morn beholds him slain along the shore."