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[ti:The Mountaineering Club Orchestra - Cruising In The Ice] |
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[ar:The Mountaineering Club Orchestra] |
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[al:A Start on Such a Night Is Full of Promise] |
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[la:EN] |
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[re:LRCgenerator.com] |
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[ve:3.00] |
| [00:06.36] |
As we leave the land behind us we are followed by hundreds |
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of kittiwakes, in billowy masses of white and blue, chattering |
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in endless chorus, now sinking as they swoop low on extended |
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wing over the vessel's wake, now rising as they soar lightly in |
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their graceful evolutions up towards the blue sky. |
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Between heavens and seas, the black form of the Jason, labouring and moaning |
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as her engines drive her westward. Behind us the rocky coast |
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of Iceland, a fringe of violet blue, is slowly sinking into the |
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sea. Behind us lie home and life : what lies before us ? We |
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cannot tell, but it must be beautiful. A start on such a night |
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is full of promise. |
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I am sitting alone in the stern of the vessel and gazing out |
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into the night at the gathering clouds, which, still tinged by |
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the sun, are sailing over the horizon to the north-west. Behind |
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them lies Greenland, as yet invisible. |
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All nature is, as it were, sunk in her own dreams, and |
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gently and quietly the mind, too, is drawn back into itself |
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to pursue the train of its own thoughts, which unconsciously |
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borrow a reflection of the colours of the sky. |
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Among all things that are beautiful in life are not such |
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nights most beautiful? |
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And life - is it much more than hope and remembrance? |
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Hope is of the morning, it may be, but on such nights as this |
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do not memories, all the fair memories of bygone days, arise |
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dewy and fresh from the mists of the distant past, and sweep |
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by in a long undulating train, sunlit and alluring, till they dis- |
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appear once more in the melting western glow? And all |
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that is mean, all that is odious, lies behind, sunk in the dark |
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ocean of oblivion. |
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The very next day, June 5, we reached the ice, which this |
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year has come a long way south. |
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The impression which the floe-ice of the Arctic seas makes |
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upon the traveller the first time he sees it is very remarkable. (...) |
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The drifting ice, a huge white glittering expanse stretching as far as the eye can reach, and throwing a white reflection |
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far around upon the air and mist ; the dark sea, often showing |
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black as ink against the white ; and above all this a sky, now |
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gleaming cloudless and pale-blue, now dark and threatening |
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vrith driving scud, or again wrapped in densest fog - now |
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glowing in all the rich poetry of sunrise or sunset colour, |
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or slumbering through the lingering twilight of the summer |
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night. And then in the dark season of the year come those |
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wonderful nights of glittering stars and northern lights playing |
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far and wide above the icy deserts, or when the moon, here |
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most melancholy, wanders on her silent way through scenes |
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of desolation and death. In these regions the heavens count |
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for more than elsewhere ; they give colour and character, |
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while the landscape, simple and unvarying, has no power to |
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draw the eye. |
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Never shall I forget the first time I entered these regions. |
