“Where are thy secret laws, O Nature, where?
Thy torch-lights dazzle in the wintry zone;
How dost thou light from ice thy torches there?
There has thy son some sacred, secret throne?
See in your frozen sea what glories have their birth;
Thence night leads forth the day t’ illuminate the earth.
“Come then, philosopher, whose privileged eye
Reads Nature’s hidden pages and decrees:
Come now, and tell us whence, and where, and why,
Earth’s icy regions glow with lights like these,