The Northern Lights by John Greenleaf Whittier

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Dec 1, 1904

The Northern Lights

By John Greenleaf Whittier

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 forth 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 the glare, As from the immediate questioning of God.

O, God of mystery! These fires are Thine! Thy breath hath kindled them, and there they burn Amid the permanent glory of Thy heavens, That earliest revelation written out In starry language, visible to all, Lifting unto Thyself the heavy eyes Of the down-looking spirits of the earth! The Indian, leaning on his hunting bow, Where the ice-mountains hem the frozen pole, And the hoar architect of winter piles, With tireless hand, his snowy pyramids, Looks upward in deep awe,—while all around The eternal ices kindle with the hues Which tremble on their gleaming pinnacles And sharp cold ridges of enduring frost,— And points his child to the great Spirit’s fire.

Alas for us who boast of deeper lore, If in the maze of our vague theories, Our speculations, and our restless aim To search the secret, and familiarize The awful things of nature, we forget To own Thy presence in Thy mysteries!

—John Greenleaf Whittier.