When last I had seen merry England
It was tattered with midnight soot that beckoned the denouement of the human condition.
Begrudgingly, the people meandered with heads held low
And dreams held lower.
The simplest way to determine the societal standings of each and all was by their clothing; save that all of their dispositions were ones of the played out and spent.
Happiness lay mountains, valleys, oceans away.
Aboard this great ship,
This hulking bumberdun of wood and steel,
I felt at ease.
Even upon these hostile tides did I feel an unraveling away of the self imposed mummifications that I had attached to myself.
I arose when I pleased,
I dined when I pleased,
And I drank as I pleased.
And not one such "captain" ****** himself with the responsibility of slavedriving.
No one had to.
For the man that suaded the great ship was John Franklin,
A man who commanded as much respect as we could muster.
And who deserved more honor than existence could give.
Franklin was never seen out of form,
Perpetually at the fore and scanning the horizons
Seemingly as if he could see beyond what that of a mortal man could,
What that of a mortal man should.
When we happened upon the mouth of the passage,
Naught but a slight smile escaped him
As the crew drank and shouted with jubilant glee that one might expect from a cathedral when the Lord Almighty had fell upon that place.
For this was Franklin's church
And this was his religion.
Had he believed himself to be God it would not have seemed so far fetched that others would not be led to believe.
But then a tear,
A small and just single tear,
Lazed from his eye
Leaving a trail that one might expect from a dove with no concrete destination.
A hush fell over the men.
All merry making ceased.
All stared in wild-eyed awe towards the regal, icy mountain ranges on the horizon.
Lush, full meadows blanketed the grounds along the mainland.
Whatever paths we had followed to this point were routes well cut.
The sadness,
Sorrow,
Joy,
And loss,
All things fell by the wayside.
Some men prayed,
Others began singing.
Regardless of religious preference,
Each man joined in,
Not so much singing as it were wailing and graciously weeping Amazing Grace
As Franklin led the choir.
God is a mountain in the farthest north of the Americas
And Heaven lay in his valley.