Joseph Kearney Foran
The Aurora Borealis
AS the twilight’s gray was swallowed
In the depths of night that followed,
And the hand of darkness hollowed
Furrows deep along the land,
Distant bells in sheepfold tinkled,
Million stars in azure twinkled,
Over mountain-peaks that stand
Like giants swarth and grand.
In the north behold a flushing;
Then a deep and crimson blushing;
Followed by an airy rushing
Of the purple waves that rise!
As when armëd host advances,
See, a silver banner dances,
And a thousand golden lances
Shimmer in the Boreal skies!
The vision slowly dies!
Now, in bright prismatic splendor,
Comes a picture still more tender,
As a curtain white and slender
Falls across the space afar;
Where its lacy folds are ending,
With the black of distance blending,
Are its miles of fringe descending,
Hanging from a golden bar—
Pinned to heaven by a star!
Like a monster roused from sleeping,
First to westward slowly creeping,
Then, in headlong fury, sweeping,
Rushed a mammoth cloud of black;
Rolling upward, plunging, lashing,
Through the fairy curtain dashing,
With a thousand beauties flashing
O’er its phosphorescent back—
Endless streamers in its track!
Visions of Arabian story;
Crimson fields of battle gory;
In kaleidoscopic glory,
Shifting, fading, restless tents;
Fairy armies wild in motion;
Jewelled shrines of strange devotion;
And a greenish, tideless ocean,
Bound by ice-clad mounts and dents,
Saw we through the curtain’s rents!
Transformations still beholding,
Up the veil is swiftly folding—
And fantastic shapes are moulding
On the background of the sky;
Dimmer armies are parading,—
Fainter wreaths the light is braiding,
While the splendors all are fading
Into one deep purple dye,
Disappearing from the eye!