The Voyages of Captain Scott
Chapter IX. The South Pole
The Silence was deep with a breath like sleep
As our sledge runners slid on the snow,
And the fate-full 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.
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And this was the thought that the Silence wrought,
As it scorched and froze us through,
For the 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.
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(These verses, called 'The Barrier Silence,' were written by Wilson
for the South Polar Times. Characteristically, he sent them
in typewritten, lest the editor should recognize his hand and judge
them on personal rather than literary grounds. Many of their readers
confess that they felt in these lines Wilson's own premonition of
the event. The version given is the final form, as it appeared
in the South Polar Times.)
The ages of the five men when they continued the journey to the
Pole were: Scott 43, Wilson 39, P.O. Evans 37, Oates 32, Bowers
28.
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