And one by one the North King's searching lance Touch'd, and they stiffen'd at their task, and died; And their stout leader glanced a farewell glance; 'God is as close by sea as land,' he cried, 'In His own light not nearer than this gloom,'-- And look'd as one who o'er the mountains sees his home. Home!--happy sound of vanish'd happiness! --But when the unwilling sun crept up again, And loosed the sea from winter and duresse, The seal-wrapt race that roams the Lapland main Saw in Arzina, wondering, fearing more, The tatter'd ships, in snows entomb'd and vaulted o'er: And clomb the decks, and found the gallant crew, As forms congeal'd to stone, where frozen fate Took each man in his turn, and gently slew:-- Nor knew the heroic chieftain, as he sate, English through every fibre, in his place, The smile of duty done upon the steadfast face. Sir Hugh Willoughby, in the _Bona Esperanza_, with two other vessels, sailed May 10, 1553, saluting the palace of Greenwich is they passed. By September 18 he, with one consort, reached the harbour of Arzina, where all perished early in 1554. His will, dated in January of that year, was found when the ships were discovered by the Russians soon after. Willoughby has been taken here as the representative of the great age of British naval adventure and exploration. _Arzina_ is placed near the western headland of the White Sea, east of the Waranger Fiord, and west of Nova Zembla and the mouth of the Petchora. CROSSING SOLWAY May 16: 1568 Blow from the North, thou bitter North wind, Blow over the western bay, Where Nith and Eden and Esk run in And fight with the salt sea spray, And the sun shines high through the sailing sky In the freshness of blue Mid-may. Blow North-North-West, and hollow the sails Of a Queen who slips over the sea As a hare from the hounds; and her covert afar; And now she can only flee; And death before and the sisterly shore That smiles perfidiously. O Mid-may freshness about her cheek And piercing her poor attire, The sting of defeat thou canst not allay, The fever of heart and the fire, The death-despair for the days that were, And famine of vain desire! --On Holyrood stairs an iron-heel'd clank Came up in the gloaming hour: And iron fingers have bursten the bar Of the palace innermost bower: And fiend-like on her the Douglas and Ker And spectral Ruthven glower. She hears the shriek as the Morton horde Hurry the victim beneath; And she feels their dead man's grasp on her skirt In the frenzy-terror of death; And the dastard King at her bosom cling With a serpent's poison-breath. O fair girl Queen, well weep for the friend To his faith too faithful and thee; For a brother's hypocrite tears; for the flight To the Castle set by the sea;-- Where thy father's tomb lay and gaped in the gloom 'Twere better for thee to be!