When Night's dark wings are slowly furled
And clouds roll off the orient sky,
And sunlight bursts upon the world,
Like angels' pinions flashing by,
A matin hymn unheard will rise
From every flower and hill and tree,
And songs of joy float up the skies,
Like holy anthems from the sea.
When sunlight dies, and shadows fall,
And twilight plumes her rosy wing,
Devotion's breath lifts Music's pall,
And silvery voices seem to sing.
And when the earth falls soft to rest,
And young wind's pinions seem to tire,
Then the pure streams upon its breast
Join their glad sounds with Nature's lyre.
And when the sky that bends above
Is lighted up with spirit fires,
A gladdening song of praise and love
Is pealing from the sky-tuned lyres;
And every star that throws its light
From off Creation's bending brow,
Is offering on the shrine of Night
The same unchanging subject-vow.
Thus Earth 's a temple vast and fair,
Filled with the glorious works of love
When earth and sky and sea and air
Join in the praise of God above;
And still through countless coming years
Unwearied songs of praise shall roll
On plumes of love to Him who hears
The softest strain in Music's soul.
There was a remarkable display of the aurora borealis in January, 1837, and this poem commemorates the phenomenon:—
THE NORTHERN LIGHTS
A light is troubling heaven! A strange dull glow
Hangs like a half-quenched veil of fire between
The blue sky and the earth; and the shorn stars
Gleam faint and sickly through it. Day hath left
No token of its parting, and the blush
With which it welcomed the embrace of Night
Has faded from the blue cheek of the West;
Yet from the solemn darkness of the North,
Stretched o'er the "empty place" by God's own hand,
Trembles and waves that curtain of pale fire,—
Tingeing with baleful and unnatural hues
The winter snows beneath. It is as if
Nature's last curse—the fearful plague of fire—
Were working in the elements, and the skies
Even as a scroll consuming.
Lo, a change!
The fiery wonder sinks, and all along
A dark deep crimson rests—a sea of blood,
Untroubled by a wave. And over all
Bendeth a luminous arch of pale, pure white,
Clearly contrasted with the blue above,
And the dark red beneath it. Glorious!
How like a pathway for the Shining Ones,
The pure and beautiful intelligences
Who minister in Heaven, and offer up
Their praise as incense, or like that which rose
Before the Pilgrim prophet, when the tread
Of the most holy angels brightened it,
And in his dream the haunted sleeper saw
The ascending and descending of the blest!
And yet another change! O'er half the sky
A long bright flame is trembling, like the sword
Of the great angel of the guarded gate
Of Paradise, when all the holy streams
And beautiful bowers of Eden-land blushed red
Beneath its awful wavering, and the eyes
Of the outcasts quailed before its glare,
As from the immediate questioning of God.