Alaska

(From The Pleasures of Hope)
Angel of life! thy glittering wings explore
Earth’s loneliest bounds and ocean’s wildest shore.
Lo! to the wintry winds the pilot yields
His bark careering o’er unfathomed fields;
Now on Atlantic waves he rides afar,
Where Andes, giant of the western star,
With meteor standard to the winds unfurled,
Looks from his throne of clouds o’er half the world.
Now far he sweeps, where scarce a summer smiles,
On Behring’s rocks, or Greenland’s naked isles:
Cold on his midnight watch the breezes blow,
From wastes that slumber in eternal snow;
And waft, across the waves’ tumultuous roar,
The wolf’s long howl from Oonalaska’s shore.