Where far-off suns their fainter splendors throw O’er Lapland’s wastes of uncongenial snow, Where giant icebergs lift their horrent spires And the blank scene a gelid fear expires, Where oft the aurora of the northern night Cheats with pale beams of ineffectual light, Where icy Winter broods o’er hill and plain, And Summer never comes, or comes in vain; Yet here, e’en here, kind Nature grants to man A boon congenial with her general plan. Though no fair blooms to vernal gales expand, And smiling Ceres shuns th’ unyielding land, Behold, even here, cast up a monstrous spoil, The sea’s vast monarch yields nutritious oil, Escaped, perchance, from where the unfeeling crews Dart the swift steel, and hempen coils unloose, He whirls impetuous through the crimson tide, Nor heeds the death that quivers in his side; Northward he rushes with impulsive fin, Where shores of crystal groan with ocean’s din, Shores that will melt with pity’s glow more soon Than the hard heart that launched the fierce harpoon. In vain! he dies! yet not without avail The blubbery bulk between his nose and tail. Soon shall that bulk, in liquid amber stored, Shed smiling plenty round some Lapland board. Dream not, ye nymphs that flutter round the tray When suns declining shut the door of day, While China’s herb, infused with art, ye sip, And toast and scandal share the eager lip. Dream not to you alone that Life is kind, Nor Hyson’s charms alone can soothe the mind; If you are blest, ah, how more blest is he By kinder fate shut far from tears and tea, Who marks, replenished by his duteous hand, Dark faces oleaginously expand; And while you faint to see the scalding doom Invade with stains the pride of Persia’s loom, Happier in skins than you in silks perhaps, Deals the bright train-oil to his little Lap’s. LECTURE XI WORDSWORTH (_Tuesday Evening, February 13, 1855_) XI A few remarks upon two of the more distinguished poets of the eighteenth century will be a fitting introduction to Wordsworth, and, indeed, a kind of commentary on his poetry. Of two of these poets we find very evident traces in him--Thomson and Cowper--of the one in an indiscriminating love of nature, of the other in a kind of domestic purity, and of both in the habit of treating subjects essentially prosaic, in verse; whence a somewhat swelling wordiness is inevitable. * * * * *