THE MASTERS OF THE POLE

Mataura Ensign, 19 March 1913, Page 7

THE MASTERS OF THE POLE

Come let us pra-ife their honored names And trace on Fame's bright scroll The story of their thrilling: march And conquest of the Pole.

They sailed to storm-racked Southern Seas, Past iceberg, floe and shoal, To pierce the mysteries, and to lear? l The secrets of the Pole.

Southward ahoy! the march begins; 'Who can foretell their fate? They pass the Barrier's snowy peaks With hearts and minds elate.

Across the glacier's ice-ribbed sides, O'er snow-bound hill s and plains,' O'er frozen wastes, where silence bounds And desolation reigns.

For two brief days, their records toll. They stayed beside their goal; The conquerors of the frozen wastes. The Masters of the Pole.

Homeward they turn, their march retrace— Alas! they march in vain; The screaming blizzard swept in wrath O'er ice-capped ridge and plain.

Thev fought the glacier's piercing cold, Though feeble was their state; They struggled through the blinding drift, But could not conquer Fate. They died: The blizzard sang a hymn O'er each departing soul— They died; but they will live for aye On Fame's enduring scroll. There let them rest, no mortal tomb Can fit them half so well /s those vast, solemn, snow-draped wastes They fought, and. fighting, fell. es, we will trace their honored names On Fame's enduring scroll, And praise in story and in song The Masters of the Pole. ALEX. WALKER. Gore, March 18, 1913.