Arctic Anthem

ARCTIC ANTHEM

Ice wills out the hand infernal
Stays the storm and spurns the blight
Ephemeral now eternal
Buried for a future light
Cores and shovels reignite
Our great ancestors' lives and lot
The ice will be our staunch preserver
Heroes never left forgot

Just as the art of ages late
Has sculpted rocks and hearts' beliefs
Onwards, in their epoch waiting
Glaciers calve in grand reliefs
Ice our pages all out-aging
Sculpting sweeping valleys old
And defies all the futile waging
Living when our lives are told

Ice can quench the wearys' thirst
Upon its generous rivulets
Grant its shelter, fashioned first
When sun upon its vastness sets
When such rays would liquify
And fissure, fracture, thin its face
The ice again our staunch preserver
Turning glares back out to space

Just when the cold is seizing fast
The strains of friendship born to break
See! Ice freezes, die not cast
And runs its bridge across the lake
You can walk the void, not trepid
Crystal pass the distance paled
Shines aloft and makes the tepid
Link alive and unassailed

Embracing past the relics of the quarrel
We look onwards too!
Guarding all our brothers
We secure and past and hope renew
Our skins of ice hide hearts of fire
Land that's ours in soul and name
And when we face the challenge dire
Recall it's ice that is our fame