His daughter holds close
The Arctic Star
Gleaming new
With bright ribbon,
Conjecturing.

Roaring night embraces
Each shuddering hulk
Battling to the death
A fearsome, screaming ice
Now beckoning.

No lessening of the dread
Hunting and pummelling
And surrendering
Unto the life hereafter
Of valiant men.

Within this heaving Hell
Of hilly seas
Screaming, slavering, salty wolves
Devouring in their dreams again
Our frozen boys.

And so many souls are fled
And so many bodies sunken
Embroidering
The ocean bed
With weeping valour.

Beyond all possibility of mercy
The grimacing ships
Grind ever onwards
Peopled by pounding hearts awaiting
The hideous seas of certain death.

Tenacity beyond all measure
To venture onwards
And break the challenge
Of the black and bloody sea
Brings triumph at the last.

And still the green eyed wolves
Venting their spume
Roar loud their throaty snarls
And pray for plenteous drowning souls
To bedeck their ravening lairs.

His daughter turns her eyes to me
Triumphant too
That her Father had
Against a multitude of savage odds
Survived to bring her forth.