ON SEEING THE AURORA BOREALIS

The day retires, the mists of night are spread
Slowly o'er nature, darkening as they rise;
The gloomy clouds are gathering round our heads,
And twilight's latest glimmering gently dies:
The stars awake in heaven's abyss of blue;
Say, who can count them? — Who can sound it? — Who?

Even as a sand in the majestic sea,
A diamond-atom on a hill of snow,
A spark amidst a Hecla's majesty,
An unseen mote where maddened whirlwinds blow,
And I midst scenes like these — the mighty thought
O'erwhelms me — I am nought, or less than nought.

And science tells me that each twinkling star
That smiles above us is a peopled sphere,
Or central sun, diffusing light afar;
A link of nature's chain: — and there, even there,
The Godhead shines displayed — in love and light,
Creating wisdom — all-directing might.

Where are thy secret laws, O Nature, where?
In wintry realms thy dazzling torches blaze,
And from thy icebergs streams of glory there
Are poured, while other suns their splendent race
In glory run: from frozen seas what ray
Of brightness? — From yon realms of night what day?

Philosopher, whose penetrating eye
Reads nature's deepest secrets, open now
This all-inexplicable mystery:
Why do earth's darkest, coldest regions glow
With lights like these? — Oh, tell us, knowing one,
For thou dost count the stars, and weigh the sun!

Whence are these varied lamps all lighted round? —
Whence all the horizon's glowing fire? — The heaven
Is splendent as with lightning — but no sound
Of thunder — all as calm as gentlest even;
And winter's midnight is as bright, as gay,
As the fair noontide of a summer's day.

What stores of fire are these, what magazine,
Whence God from grossest darkness light supplies?
What wondrous fabric which the mountains screen,
Whose bursting flames above those mountains rise;
Where rattling winds disturb the mighty ocean,
And the proud waves roll with eternal motion?

Vain is the inquiry — all is darkness, doubt:
This earth is one vast mystery to man.
First find the secrets of this planet out,
Then other planets, other systems scan!
Nature is veiled from thee, presuming clod!
And what canst thou conceive of Nature's God?