And so, as seated in our shrouds, we sailed in among great mountain
passes of ice-isles; from icy ledges scaring shivering seals, and
white bears, musical with icicles, jingling from their shaggy ermine.

Far and near, in towering ridges, stretched the glassy Andes; with
their own frost, shuddering through all their domes and pinnacles.
Ice-splinters rattled down the cliffs, and seethed into the sea.

Broad away, in amphitheaters undermined by currents, whole cities of
ice-towers, in crashes, toward one center, fell.--In their
earthquakes, Lisbon and Lima never saw the like. Churned and broken in
the boiling tide, they swept off amain;--over and over rolling; like
porpoises to vessels tranced in calms, bringing down the gale.

At last, rounding an antlered headland, that seemed a moose at
bay--ere long, we launched upon blue lake-like waters, serene as
Windermere, or Horicon. Thus, from the boisterous storms of youth, we
glide upon senility.

But as we northward voyaged, another aspect wore the sea.

In far-off, endless vistas, colonnades of water-spouts were seen: all
heaven's dome upholding on their shafts: and bright forms gliding up
and down within. So at Luz, in his strange vision, Jacob saw the angels.

A boundless cave of stalactites, it seemed; the cloud-born vapors
downward spiraling, till they met the whirlpool-column from the sea;
then, uniting, over the waters stalked, like ghosts of gods. Or midway
sundered--down, sullen, sunk the watery half; and far up into heaven,
was drawn the vapory. As, at death, we mortals part in twain; our