Robert Southey

“ Two Dragons, yok'd in adamant, convey
The magic car; from either collar sprung
An adamantine rib, which met in air,
O'er-arch'd, and crost and bent diverging there,
And firmly in its arc upbore,
Upon their brazen necks, the seat of power.
Arvalan mounts the car, and in his hand
Receives the magic reins from Lorrinite;
The dragons, long obedient to command,
Their ample sails expand;
Like steeds well-broken to fair lady's hand,
They feel the reins of might,
And up the northern sky begin their flight. ”

“ On. . on. . they roll, and now, with shivering shock,
Are dash'd against the rock that girds the Pole.
Down from his shatter'd mail the unhappy Soul
Is dropt,. . ten thousand thousand fathoms down,. . .
Till in an ice-rift, 'mid the eternal snow,
Foul Arvalan is stopt. There let him howl,
Groan there,. . and there, with unavailing moan,
For aid on his Almighty Father call.
All human sounds are lost
Amid those deserts of perpetual frost,
Old Winter's drear domain,
Beyond the limits of the living World,
Beyond Kehama's reign. ”

“ Incurs the guilt even when the crime is spar'd!
Joyous toward Meru's summit on he far'd,
While the twin Dragons, rising as he guides,
With steady flight, steer northward for the pole.
Anon, with irresistible controul,
Force mightier far than his arrests their course ”