POETRY.
THE SEA OTTER.
CURSED with a skin that charms the eye—
All shot with satin sheen, More worth than pearl or lazuli, The pride of King and Queen, A coat that not the equal heft
Of minted gold can buy—
He lives to be of life bereft, To seek a sanctuary. A hunted thing, be dreads the shore, And shuns the haunts of men, From Attu to the Chernaboor He dwells without their ken : He harbours where no harbours are, Upon the ocean's breast, On seaward rafts of weed afar He snatches troubled rest.
But when the winter tempests lash The sullen northern sea, The leaping rips and races thrash And herd him to the lee Of ranks of surf-swept islets trailed Athwart the swirling tides, Where, by the huddling mist-wreaths veiled, The harried otter hides.
Then to his quest the hunter hastes Upon the dying gale, To speed across the watery wastes Of livid ridge and vale ; Part man, part water-imp, and part The otter's next-of-kin, None other has the hard-won art, To take the velvet skin.
In his bidarka, willow-ribbed, And wrapped with walrus-hide, Lashed watertight and snugly cribbed, He launches on the tide Towards the snarling reefiets rimmed About with milk-white surge, Where, voiced by reeling waves, is hymned His quarry's echoing dirge.
With net or club in stealthy strife, With spear in open war, The crafty Aleut seeks his life By ocean, coast, and bar ; The clanging billows call to him, Their long-drawn anthem peals Whence over Saanak's fretted rim The burgomaster wheels.
Banned with a coat of glossy hair A Czar may not despise, A shimmering silk without compare, The lust of princely eyes, Of mandarin and potentate The dearest heart's-desire, He only lives to flee his fate, A shelter to require. L. S. Moos.
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