This chapter would be incomplete without Wilson's own beautiful lines
from the "South Polar Times";

THE BARRIER SILENCE

The Silence was deep with a breath like sleep
As our sledge runner slid on the snow,
And the fateful fall of our fur-clad feet
Struck mute like a silent blow.
On a questioning "hush," as the settling crust
Shrank shivering over the floe;
And the sledge in its track sent a whisper back
Which was lost in a white-fog bow.
And this was the thought that the Silence wrought
As it scorched and froze us through,
Though secrets hidden are all forbidden
Till God means man to know.
We might be the men God meant should know
The heart of the Barrier snow,
In the heat of the sun, and the glow
And the glare from the glistening floe,
As it scorched and froze us through and through
With the bite of the drifting snow.




CHAPTER XVII