LAPLAND by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD

"With blue cold nose and wrinkled brow,
Traveller, whence comest thou?"
From Lapland woods and hills of frost
By the rapid rein-deer crost;
Where tap'ring grows the gloomy fir,
And the stunted juniper;
Where the wild hare and the crow
Whiten in surrounding snow;
Where the shiv'ring huntsmen tear
His fur coat from the grim white bear;
Where the wolf and arctic fox
Prowl among the lonely rocks;
And tardy suns to deserts drear
Give days and nights of half a year.
From icy oceans, where the whale
Tosses in foam his lashing tail;
Where the snorting sea-horse shows
His ivory teeth in grinning rows;
Where tumbling in their seal-skin boat
Fearless the hungry fishers float,
And from teeming seas supply
The food their niggard plains deny.

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