Walt Whitman (1819–92)

Of That Blithe Throat of Thine

[More than eighty-three degrees north — about a good day’s steaming distance to the Pole by one of our fast oceaners in clear water — Greely the explorer heard the song of a single snow-bird merrily sounding over the desolation.]

Of that blithe throat of thine from arctic bleak and blank,
I’ll mind the lesson, solitary bird — let me too welcome chilling drifts,
E’en the profoundest chill, as now — a torpid pulse, a brain unnerv’d,
Old age land-lock’d within its winter bay — (cold, cold, O cold!)
These snowy hairs, my feeble arm, my frozen feet,
For them thy faith, thy rule I take, and grave it to the last;
Not summer’s zones alone — not chants of youth, or south’s warm tides alone,
But held by sluggish floes, pack’d in the northern ice, the cumulus of years,
These with gay heart I also sing.