Over our eyes, and we lay down to sleep--
Waking to hear the mocking laugh of ghouls,
To find us chained, enslaved,--and, worse than all!
Lost from our corporal bodies--spirits--dead!

"I, as the leader of the intruding band,
Am doomed to wander on this mountain side,
A century, before my restless ghost,
Freed from the thraldom of weird OENE's power,
Regains its natural liberty, and soars
Into the paradise of happy souls.
This is the punishment those mortals bear,
Who, venturing into this strange Arctic world,
Are vanquished by its sovereign. She hath power,
The source of which I know not, to retain
The souls of mortals for an hundred years,
Demanding service which they needs must pay.
The gloomy caverns underneath this mount,
And those which in the hearts of icebergs lie,
And many by the sea, are filled with those
Who work their ransom out with tedious toil.
For me--I am not put to any task--
My punishment to gaze afar and see
How cruelly all friends from distant shores,
Who dare attempt my rescue, are restrained.
Alas; the North-west Passage! When the day
Glinted o'er this pale land, before my sight
In devious tracery that Passage lay;
Mocking me with its undeveloped truth,
Wealth unappropriated, glory lost!