But the Arctic summer is short-lived. The days of the bird and the flower and the rippling creeks are numbered. Soon the sky turns grey, the wind chants the sun's requiem, the snow falls; and then returns the cold, the gloom, the feeling of isolation, the indescribable terror.
I heard these songs sung in the Arctic, the singer at my side—these songs of nature, songs of hope, home, heart. They seem a part of my life. I heard them as the cry of a lone bird in the vast silence of eternal snows.
JOAQUIN MILLER
The Heights, Cal.
Nov. 15th '99
The Northern Light
Who drapes that mystic veil across that everbrooding sky?
Who hues it with a soul of pearl? Who draws it to and fro?
Who breathes upon it with the breath that makes it glow and die,
Lighting that crystal river, those mountains cowl'd with snow?