The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 10, August, 1858

"Of Iceland, and of Greenland,
And the stormy Hebrides,
And the undiscovered deep;–
I could not eat nor sleep
For thinking of those seas.

"To the northward stretched the desert,–
How far I fain would know;
So at last I sallied forth,
And three days sailed due north,
As far as the whale-ships go.

"To the west of me was the ocean,–
To the right the desolate shore;
But I did not slacken sail
For the walrus or the whale,
Till after three days more.

"The days grew longer and longer,
Till they became as one;
And southward through the haze
I saw the sullen blaze
Of the red midnight sun.

"And then uprose before me,
Upon the water's edge,
The huge and haggard shape
Of that unknown North Cape,
Whose form is like a wedge.

"The sea was rough and stormy,
The tempest howled and wailed,
And the sea-fog, like a ghost,
Haunted that dreary coast,–
But onward still I sailed.

"Four days I steered to eastward,
Four days without a night:
Bound in a fiery ring
Went the great sun, O King,
With red and lurid light."

Here Alfred, King of the Saxons,
Ceased writing for a while;
And raised his eyes from his book,
With a strange and puzzled look,
And an incredulous smile.

But Othere, the old sea-captain,
He neither paused nor stirred;
And the King listened, and then
Once more took up his pen,
And wrote down every word.

"And now the land," said Othere,
"Bent southward suddenly,
And I followed the curving shore
And ever southward bore
Into a nameless sea.

"And there we hunted the walrus,
The narwhale, and the seal:
Ha! 'twas a noble game,
And like the lightning's flame
Flew our harpoons of steel!

"There were six of us altogether,
Norsemen of Helgoland;
In two days and no more
We killed of them threescore,
And dragged them to the strand!"

Here Alfred the Truth-Teller
Suddenly closed his book,
And lifted his blue eyes
With doubt and strange surmise
Depicted in their look.

And Othere, the old sea-captain,
Stared at him wild and weird,
Then smiled, till his shining teeth
Gleamed white from underneath
His tawny, quivering beard.

And to the King of the Saxons,
In witness of the truth,
Raising his noble head,
He stretched his brown hand, and said.
"Behold this walrus-tooth!"

THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE

EVERY MAN HIS OWN BOSWELL

[The schoolmistress came down with a rose in her hair,–a fresh June rose. She has been walking early; she has brought back two others,–one on each cheek.

I told her so, in some such pretty phrase as I could muster for the occasion. Those two blush-roses I just spoke of turned into a couple of damasks. I suppose all this went through my mind, for this was what I went on to say:–]

I love the damask rose best of all. The flowers our mothers and sisters used to love and cherish, those which grow beneath our eaves and by our doorstep, are the ones we always love best. If the Houyhnhnms should ever catch me, and, finding me particularly vicious and unmanageable, send a man-tamer to Rareyfy me, I'll tell you what drugs he would have to take and how he would have to use them. Imagine yourself reading a number of the Houyhnhnms Gazette, giving an account of such an experiment.