Loved Voyager! whose pages had a zest More sweet than fiction to my wond’ring breast, When, rapt in fancy, many a boyish day I tracked his wanderings o’er the watery way, Roamed round the Aleutian isles in waking dreams, Or plucked the _fleur-de-lys_ by Jesso’s streams— Or gladly leaped on that far Tartar strand, Where Europe’s anchor ne’er had bit the sand, Where scarce a roving wild tribe crossed the plain, Or human voice broke nature’s silent reign; But vast and grassy deserts feed the bear, And sweeping deer-herds dread no hunter’s snare. Such young delight his real records brought, His truth so touched romantic springs of thought, That all my after-life—his fate and fame Entwined romance with La Perouse’s name. Fair were his ships, expert his gallant crews, And glorious was th’ emprize of La Perouse,— Humanely glorious! Men will weep for him, When many a guilty martial fame is dim: He ploughed the deep to bind no captive’s chain— Pursued no rapine—strewed no wreck with slain, And, save that in the deep themselves lie low, His heroes plucked no wreath from human woe. ’Twas his the earth’s remotest bounds to scan, Conciliating with gifts barbaric man— Enrich the world’s contemporaneous mind, And amplify the picture of mankind. Far on the vast Pacific—midst those isles, O’er which the earliest morn of Asia smiles, He sounded and gave charts to many a shore And gulf of Ocean new to nautic lore; Yet he that led Discovery o’er the wave, Still finds himself an undiscovered grave. He came not back,—Conjecture’s cheek grew pale, Year after year—in no propitious gale, His lilied banner held its homeward way, And Science saddened at her martyr’s stay. An age elapsed—no wreck told where or when The chief went down with all his gallant men, Or whether by the storm and wild sea flood He perished, or by wilder men of blood— The shudd’ring Fancy only guess’d his doom, And Doubt to Sorrow gave but deeper gloom.