Distant shores

"Perched on my city office-stool
I watched with envy, while a cool
And lucky carter handled ice ...
And I was wandering in a trice,
Far from the gray and grimy heat
Of that intolerable street,
O'er sapphire berg and emerald floe,
Beneath the still, cold ruby glow
Of everlasting Polar night,
Bewildered by the queer half-light,
Until I stumbled, unawares,
Upon a creek where big white bears
Plunged headlong down with flourished heels,
And floundered after shining seals
Through shivering seas of blinding blue.
And as I watched them, ere I knew,
I'd stripped and I was swimming, too,
Among the seal-pack, young and hale,
And thrusting on with threshing tail,
With twist and twirl and sudden leap
Through crackling ice and salty deep --
Diving and doubling with my kind,
Until, at last, we left behind
Those big white, blundering bulks of death,
And lay, at length, with panting breath
Upon a far untravelled floe,
Beneath a gentle drift of snow --
Snow drifting gently, fine and white,
Out of the endless Polar night,
Falling and falling evermore
Upon that far untravelled shore,
Till I was buried fathoms deep
Beneath that cold, white drifting sleep --
Sleep drifting deep,
Deep drifting sleep . . . .

The carter cracked a sudden whip:
I clutched my stool with startled grip,
Awakening to the grimy heat
Of that intolerable street."

The Ice-Cart  Wilfred Wilson Gibson

Thames Frost Fairs

"1788/89

With the temperature within the city of London recorded as 11 degrees below freezing as early as the 25th November, throughout December and January fairs were held on the ice in London from Putney Bridge to Rotherhithe, a greater area than previously recorded.  Various amusements included turnabouts, puppet-shows, bear-baiting and a travelling menagerie of animals.  On one booth a sign was was raised :
'This booth to let.  The present possessor of the property is Mr. J. Frost.  His affairs however not being on a permanent footing a dissolution or bankruptcy may soon be expected and the final settlement of the whole entrusted to Mr. Thaw'.

Printing presses were installed and from one came the following verse:
The silver Thames was frozen o'er
No difference 'twixt the stream and shore,
The like no Man had seen before
Except he lived in days of yore. "

Frosts, Freezes and Fairs  Ian Currie