No trace, but a floating spar or two, and driftwood embedded
in ice, was ever found of the _Erebus_ or _Terror_.
Truly the "Franklin relics," brought from amid the regions of snow and
ice, are a possession of which those know the value who know how great a
thing it is to walk on in the path of duty, with brave defiance of
peril, and, above all, a steadfast dependence upon God.
Mr. William L. Bird, a young man of great promise, deaf from his seventh
year, who died in Hartford, Conn., in 1879, left among his papers a
little poem which well expresses the mood of Lady Franklin in her lonely
years:
THE OCEAN.
I stand alone
On wave-washed stone
To fathom thine immensity,
With merry glance
Thy wide expanse
Smiles, O! so brightly upon me.
Art thou my friend, blue, sparkling sea?
With your cool breeze
My brow you ease,
And brush the pain and care away.
Your waves, the while,
With sunny smile,
Around my feet in snowy spray
Of fleecy lightness dance and play.
So light of heart,
So void of art,
Your waves' low laugh is mocking me.
I hear their voice--
"Come, play, rejoice;
Come, be as happy as are we;
Why should you not thus happy be?"
Alas! I know
That, deep below,
And tangled up in sea-weeds, lies,
Where light dares not
Disturb the spot,
He who alone can cheer my eyes.
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