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Versified by C. T. Brooks
FAR in the north, behind the Orcades, | |
| The setting sun a twilight glimmer shed; | |
| Eastward afar the coasts of men were seen | |
| Dim, shadowy, and spectral; like a still, | |
| Broad land of spirits lay the vacant sea | 5 |
| Beneath the empty heavens;—here and there | |
| Perchance a vessel skimmed the watery waste, | |
| Like a white-winged sea-bird; but it moved | |
| Too pale and small beneath the veil of space. | |
| Sublime and awful solitude! the heart, | 10 |
| As it broods over thee, beats fast, and feels | |
| Ennobled!—Thou, too, goest forth, pale sun; | |
| Like a white angel, goest down to visit | |
| The silent, ice-walled cloister of the pole, | |
| And, drawing after thee thy bridal garment, | 15 |
| That floats in gold upon the weltering wave, | |
| Veilest thyself around! Where art thou now, | |
| Pale one in rosy robes? Wilt glimmer forth | |
| Again into a warm and glowing eye | |
| Among the ice-fields?—Standing here, I gaze | 20 |
| Down on the dreary winter of the world. | |
| How dumb and endless is it down below! | |
| The almighty, outstretched giant stirs himself | |
| In all his thousand limbs, and wrinkles up, | |
| And nothing remains great before him, save | 25 |
| His Father, the great Heaven!—Mighty Son! | |
| Wilt lead me to the Father, when, at last, | |
| I come to thee?— | |
| Lo, what a gorgeous spectacle! Aurora | |
| Upon the ruddy evening twilight glows, | 30 |
| With fast increasing light. What can it be | |
| That rends away so suddenly the dark | |
| Shroud of the watery Orcus? How the shores | |
| Of men like golden morning blaze! Oh, art thou | |
| Already come to us again, thou fair, | 35 |
| Majestic Sun, so young and rosy-red? | |
| And wilt thou journey kindly yet once more | |
| A long day’s journey o’er the fields of men?— | |
| Glow upward, then, immortal one!—I stand | |
| Yet cold and pale on my horizon: soon | 40 |
| I must go down to the dark realms of ice. | |
| But shall I, too, like him, O God, arise | |
| More warm and bright again, to journey through | |
| A long, bright day in thy eternity? | |
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