Classic Poem

The Northern Lights

The Northern sky is filled with fires,
But not of lurid glow;
White in the air like icy spires
That shoot from banks of snow,
The rays from piled-up clouds ascend
And pour a silver light,
Where Heaven's eternal arches bend
Above the halls of Night.

In vain have mortals toiled to scale
Those high and brilliant hills;
Sealed are the fountains, pure and pale,
Of all their frozen rills.
No eagle's wing can soar so far,
No sun can melt the chain,
Let down in links from star to star
To bind them to the main.

Mysterious, solemn, cold and clear,
Their shapes majestic rise,
Like barriers round this earthly sphere—
Like gates of Paradise.
And when, at times, a glory streams
Along the shrouded land,
Like Eden's flaming sword it seems
Waved by an angel's hand.

Ye wond'rous fires—that seldom give
Your splendor to our clime,
But in your arctic region live
Through all revolving time—
Well may Imagination faint
Before your sacred blaze,
And baffled Science fail to paint
The source of Heaven-lit rays!English