Evening Reflections, on the Majesty of God, on Seeing the Great Northern Lights

Now day conceals her face, and darkness fills
The field, the forest, with the shades of night;
The gloomy clouds are gathering round the hills,
Veiling the last ray of the lingering light.
The abyss of heaven appears--the stars are kindling round;
Who, who can count those stars, who that abyss can sound?

Just as a sand ’whelm’d in the infinite sea;
A ray the frozen iceberg sends to heaven;
A feather in the fierce flame’s majesty;
A mote, by midnight’s maddened whirlwind driven,
Am I, midst this parade: an atom, less than nought,
Lost and o’erpower’d by the gigantic thought.

And we are told by wisdom’s knowing ones,
That these are multitudes of worlds like this;
That yon unnumber’d lamps are glowing suns,
And each a link amidst creation is;--
There dwells the Godhead too--there shines his wisdom’s essence--
His everlasting strength--his all-supporting presence.

Where are thy secret laws, O nature, where?
Thy north-lights dazzle in the wintry zone:
How dost thou light from ice thy torches there?
There has thy sun some sacred, secret throne?
See in yon frozen seas what glories have their birth;
Thence night leads forth the day to 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,
That fill our souls with awe:--profound inquirer, say,
For thou dost count the stars and trace the planets’ way!

What fills with dazzling beams the illumined air?
What wakes the flames that light the firmament?
The lightnings flash:--there is no thunder there--
And earth and heaven with fiery sheets are blent:
The winter night now gleams with brighter, lovelier ray
Than ever yet adorn’d the golden summer’s day.

Is there some vast, some hidden magazine,
Where the gross darkness flames of fire supplies?
Some phosphorus fabric, which the mountains screen?
Whose clouds of light above those mountains rise?
Where the winds rattle loud around the foaming sea,
And lift the waves to heaven in thundering revelry?

Thou knowest not! ’tis doubt, ’tis darkness all!
Even here on earth our thoughts benighted stray,
And all is mystery through this worldly ball--
Who then can reach or read yon milky way?
Creation’s heights and depths are all unknown--untrod--
Who then shall say how vast, how great creation’s God?