Mount Erebus
(A Fragment)
A mighty theatre of snow and fire,Girt with perpetual Winter, and sublimeBy reason of that lordly solitudeWhich dwells for ever at the world’s white ends;And in that weird-faced wilderness of ice,There is no human foot, nor any pawOr hoof of beast, but where the shrill winds driveThe famished birds of storm across the tractsWhose centre is the dim mysterious Pole.Beyond—yea far beyond the homes of man,By water never dark with coming ships,Near seas that know not feather, scale, or fin,The grand volcano, like a weird Isaiah,Set in that utmost region of the Earth,Doth thunder forth the awful utterance,Whose syllables are flame; and when the fierceAntarctic Night doth hold dominionshipWithin her fastnessess, then round the coneOf Erebus a crown of tenfold lightAppears; and shafts of marvellous splendour shootFar out to east and west and south and north,Whereat a gorgeous dome of glory roofsWild leagues of mountain and transfigured waves,And lends all things a beauty terrible.
Far-reaching lands, whereon the hand of ChangeHath never rested since the world began,Lie here in fearful fellowship with coldAnd rain and tempest. Here colossal hornsOf hill start up and take the polar fogsShot through with flying stars of fire; and here,Above the dead-grey crescents topped with spiresOf thunder-smoke, one half the heaven flamesWith that supremest light whose glittering lifeIs yet a marvel unto all but One—The Entity Almighty, whom we feelIs nearest us when we are face to faceWith Nature’s features aboriginal,And in the hearing of her primal speechAnd in the thraldom of her primal power.
While like the old Chaldean king who waxedInsane with pride, we human beings growTo think we are the mightiest of the world,And lords of all terrestrial things, beholdThe sea rolls in with a superb disdainUpon our peopled shores, omnipotent;And while we set up things of clay and callOur idols gods; and while we boast or fumeAbout the petty honours, or the poor,Pale disappointments of our meagre lives,Lo, changeless as Eternity itself,The grand Antarctic mountain looms outsideAll breathing life; and, with its awful speech,Is as an emblem of the Power Supreme,Whose thunders shake the boundless Universe,Whose lightnings make a terror of all Space.