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AN AURORA BOREALIS.
Roslin Castle.
- O STRANGE soft gleam, o ghostly dawn
- That never brightens unto day;
- Ere earth’s mirk pale once more be drawn
- Let us look out beyond the gray.
- It is just midnight by the clock—
- There is no sound on glen or hill,
- The moaning linn adown its rock
- Leaps, but the woods lie dark and still.
- Austere against the kindling sky
- Yon broken turret blacker grows;
- Harsh light, to show remorselessly
- Ruins night hid in kind repose!
- Nay, beauteous light, nay, light that fills
- The whole heaven like a dream of morn,
- As waking upon northern hills
- She smiles to find herself new‐born,—
- Strange light, I know thou wilt not stay,
- That many an hour must come and go
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- Before the pale November day
- Break in the east, forlorn and slow.
- Yet blest one gleam—one gleam like this,
- When all heaven brightens in our sight,
- And the long night that was and is
- And shall be, vanishes in light:
- O blest one hour like this! to rise
- And see grief’s shadows backward roll;
- While bursts on unaccustomed eyes
- The glad Aurora of the soul.
